


HEELS ON FIRE

by spicyshimmy



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bikers, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 03:05:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 48,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyshimmy/pseuds/spicyshimmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Tenth Street Reds, operating out of Purgatory, working for a boss known as the Councilor. Shepard's a rebel without a cause. Kaidan Alenko's a square too stubborn for a clue. Gang fights, drag races and motorcycles. Crowthis on tumblr drew some greasers and then allowed me to go hog-wild with the concept and write, you know, 48,000 words of Shepard being trouble. <i>Purgatory wasn’t for everybody. Just the lucky ones.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some parts of this were inspired by art and some art was inspired by parts of this and it is included within! All art was created by [Crowthis](http://crowthis.tumblr.com) on tumblr and is very sexy.

  
  
by [Crowthis](http://crowthis.tumblr.com)  


Purgatory wasn’t for everybody. Just the lucky ones.

Gastown didn’t have to be pretty. It didn’t have to have clean air or a view of the bay. It had plenty of bright lights in the darkness, a nebula hanging over the smoky streets; when Shepard leaned against the back wall of the club, the flashing signs formed their own kind of galaxy above him. It was like a private planetarium down there and even if it smelled like garbage, it didn’t always look like hell.

Only most of the time.

The back door opened, EXIT sign flickering. Music flooded out of the club like a sudden wind, blowing a couple of rich kids with nothing better to do than dust up and dance onto the street. The door slammed shut after them and, once their footsteps had faded, only the hum of the bass throbbing through the wall and pulsing into Shepard’s shoulders was left. For a whole lot of noise, it was still pretty damn quiet.

Shepard closed his eyes. He took the last drag on his cigarette, then crushed it under his heel and pushed free with his elbows.

‘Lift-off,’ he said.

It was time to ride.

Normandy purred between his thighs like an underground club pounding out music, only first of all, the bike had better taste in rhythm, and second of all, Shepard didn’t need to know how to dance to know how to fly. Gunning his engine, he heard the sharp echoes bouncing between warehouses, blasting through empty windows, ringing out loud and clear before the ignition guttered and steadied. He gunned the engine again, a third time, and then she was alive, ripping past a corner and over uneven streets, Shepard’s hair whipped, blinding and damp from a misty half-rain, against his face.

He had fifteen minutes to kill before he had to check in, tops. He drove clean over those fifteen minutes and one extra for good luck, and when he finally braked in front of the regular spot, the deal was already finished.

‘Nice wheels,’ he said, nodding after the car as it pulled away.

Finch stuffed his cut and the Councilor’s into his back pocket for forking over later. ‘Oh yeah? Had my eye on that beaut for a while, come to think of it. You wanna flank ‘em, see where they’re headed?’

‘Why ask when I don’t get a choice?’

‘Scope the damn joint _out_ , Shep. Give me the coordinates. We’re gonna pick ourselves out a fancy new ride.’

Shepard snorted. Any other language it would’ve been an _aye, aye_. But that wasn’t the way they did things on the streets.

‘Riding a bike’s not just like riding a bike for you, huh, Finch? Gotta have four wheels instead of two?’

‘You keep it up with the small talk, you’re gonna lose ‘em,’ Finch said. ‘Then Councilor’s gonna be angry. You like Councilor when he’s angry?’

Shepard wrapped his fingers around the handlebars, swinging his leg over the seat. Easy; smooth. Some nights his hands cramped from riding so long, so hard, so fast, from midnight until morning finally showed up, cold and wet, leather creaking around his hunched shoulders. There wasn’t a single night he cared. The closer he bent over the metal, the more he could smell it and the less the rain mattered, slick streets and skidding wheels. He forgot about a dumb thing called _breaks_ and just kept going, until the sun came up to meet him. Or at least until the clouds got a little brighter, depending on the weather.

Shepard left Finch and the rest of the guys behind in a belch of exhaust. Whatever their faces looked like, it was all covered up by smoke.

The SSV on the side of Shepard’s bike was the sweet spot, where the inside of his knee hit, where his legs pressed tight. He caught up with the flashy convertible, easy, then passed it so the driver wouldn’t get suspicious, tearing off down the street and doubling back once he was out of sight.

People with fancy things never deserved what they had—not when they couldn’t hold onto them in the first place. You didn’t drive your daddy’s best car to the worst part of town and think you were gonna be able to park it again like nothing ever happened, like it hadn’t seen the meanest side the city had to offer, right in front of the white picket fence. Shepard swung around a couple of back alleys; they were like the veins on the back of his hand, nothing special to anybody else, but he knew every twist and turn like they were a part of him.

No place like home.

Shepard followed the red flip-top all the way out of Gastown and toward Shaughnessy. The houses were fancy, the lights already off, neat little gardens out front and—what else—white picket fences around the front yards, sidewalks wide enough for two, trees and grass and flowers all over, not a single abandoned building or rusty fire escape.

It’d stopped raining. Shepard circled the block, keeping his distance. Normandy’s engine was just a quiet rumble, barely more than a whisper, keeping the secret they both knew—they weren’t supposed to be here. They didn’t belong in a nice place like this.

Finally, the car pulled into a driveway a block ahead and Shepard cut his engine to match. It was so damn quiet on the street that even Shepard’s breathing, the warm metal cooling along Normandy’s side panels, made too much noise. A light went on in a window ahead. Shepard needed a smoke; he was lighting the cigarette, cupping his hands around the flame, when he heard the footsteps.

He flicked his lighter shut. The footsteps paused, then started up again, and this kid appeared under one of the fancy, old-fashioned streetlamps. Fancy sweater, the button-up type, and fancy hair, kept all neat. Even his shoes were clean and Shepard dragged smoke into his lungs, the flare of the cigarette tip making the kid pause again. He sucked in a breath. He smelled smoke and his lips parted.

‘Being here’s not illegal, you know,’ Shepard said.

Somebody had to break the silence.

Just smashing into their walls, breaking their windows, pulling their fences up by the stakes, leaving nothing behind but a big, dirty mess. The trick to going fast was not being afraid of crashing—all that meant was a few broken bones, torn-up knees and ripped jeans and damages it wouldn’t be Shepard’s job to fix anyway. Shake their lives around a little bit. Give them some excitement. It’d be all they talked about for months, even years, much less days.

‘No,’ the kid said. ‘It isn’t, I guess. But following people around might be. And what you sold—back in Gastown?—that _definitely_ is.’

‘So you’re a funny guy.’ Shepard took another pull. He didn’t need to be calmed so the smoke didn’t have that effect; all it did was make the air he was breathing easier to see. ‘You didn’t pay for the goods in laughs, did you? ‘Cause I hear that comes with interest now.’

The kid was getting all wet, standing there with a soggy sweater. Some people didn’t know when to get out of the rain.

‘I wasn’t buying. Just…going with a friend.’

‘Yeah. Sure.’ Shepard kept the ash away from falling on the bike’s fresh paint-job, after the last thrill ride. Being afraid of going up in flames would only slow him down. ‘That’s what they all say.’

‘Well, maybe,’ the kid said. ‘I don’t know about that. What they say and what I say don’t have to be related, either.’

Shepard’s cigarette was nothing but a stub. He let it fall and it glittered with the moonlight on the wet blacktop, only seconds later going black.

‘Hey,’ the kid added. ‘Why’d you follow us back, anyway?’

‘Gotta get a bead on where your loved ones are,’ Shepard said. Lies came easier than the truth and right now, the kid was too careless. Too brave, without anything that meant he could back that kind of attitude up. This wasn’t Encyclopedia Brown, Kid Detective. Shepard wasn’t the bad boy from down the block. Maybe he wouldn’t smoke a stranger just for having the wrong attitude and an honest face, but not everybody else would be so agreeable. ‘Just in case we need that information to take ‘em out.’

‘That’s crazy,’ the kid said.

Shepard shrugged. ‘You believed me, though.’

‘You don’t have any reason to lie.’

That was rich. ‘Might not wanna hang around that friend anymore. People like that get you into all kinds of trouble.’ Shepard gunned his engines, waiting for the kid to flinch. He blinked instead, but it was enough of a tell that Shepard knew he was rattled. Just not rattled enough. ‘Better blow before somebody arrests me for messing up the atmosphere.’

‘I don’t know your name,’ the kid said.

Shepard popped a quick move around him, gaining speed before skidding to a stop and U-ing back the way he came. ‘Never gave it to you,’ he replied.

  
  
by [Crowthis](http://crowthis.tumblr.com)  


*

It was one of those nights. Long, but still—somehow—morning before he knew it. He gave Finch the address and told him it might not be an easy job, even if the hood of the convertible was down, and anyway he’d need somebody with fingers that were better at hotwiring than Finch’s hammer-hands. ‘You volunteering yourself for the job, Shep?’ Finch asked, and when Shepard finally turned in to catch some z’s, he reminded himself of something he always knew—something he could stand to live by just an inch or two harder.

Keeping his mouth shut. It might not be easy around guys like Finch and especially around guys like the Councilor, but it wasn’t as hard as Shepard could make it look, either.

Anyway, grand theft auto wasn’t the technical term if you didn’t keep the car. Shepard pushed back the shade, watching the sun come up over the city, then fell asleep with his back against the wall, framed in the windowsill, one knee hiked up and the other dangling out the window.

He dreamed he was running. Hard and fast but not fast enough. He wasn’t on his bike; it was just him, his shoes, and no headlights blowing through the darkness. Eventually he got this feeling like he was gonna fall, but he opened his eyes before that happened and braced himself on a yawn.

The sun was already high in the sky, already starting its way back down. Shepard rubbed the sleep out of his eye, an old bruise on the cheekbone from an argument with the pavement that was close to healing, close enough he kept forgetting it was there. When the heel of his palm hit it he cleared his throat and his body did the rest of the hard work, already distracted from the pain.

Hey, at least it wasn’t raining.

Lunch and dinner came at the same time: the early bird special at Apollo’s Diner, thick cut fries—and hold the ketchup. Shepard licked his fingers clean and washed his face in the men’s room, door braced shut with one foot, drying off the back of his neck and checking for blood stains on his jacket.

None this time. No tears, either. The current count was three weeks and two days he hadn’t set it on fire—or had it set on fire for him.

A new record.

Shepard shrugged his collar up and elbowed the jukebox on his way out, jostling it hard enough to shake the stuck nickel loose. He swept that into his pocket and headed out.

Autumn. Short days, long nights. Sunset came on early. Easy to feel like a creature of the night when you lost most of the day.

Then, it was back to Purgatory, leaving all the cars behind. They might’ve been bigger, but Shepard could scream faster than any of them.

‘Hey, Loco,’ James said, on his way inside as Shepard cut the engine in the lot. ‘What’s a cool cat like you doing in a dive like this?’

‘Gonna be late for your gig if you don’t beat it, James.’

‘Yeah, yeah. I hear you.’ James saluted, shouldering the back door open. ‘You know I’m never careful, Loco; that’s why I’m still around.’

With time to kill and the back door shut, Shepard headed out past the dumpsters, hopped the nearest fence into the used car lot, and set up in his favorite—a convertible that still had most of its red paint—putting his feet up to smoke, watching the stars, although mostly he was staring at dark, empty sky. One of the stray dogs knocked over a can nearby. Shepard fished the jukebox nickel out of his pocket and flipped it, caught it; flipped it, caught it. Around and around, the way the world was spinning, until the cold metal was warm.  

The fence rattled. It could’ve been another one of the dogs or a cat getting too curious for its own good. Shepard turned.

It was the kid. The sweater with a face. Now he was trying his luck a second time in a place like this, hand against the fence—and not exactly the white picket ones he was used to, either. It was gonna leave an ugly metal smell on his fingers, something he’d have to wash off a few times over before it faded away.

‘Nothing better to do on a Friday night, huh, Nosebleed?’ Shepard asked.

‘I’m not the one breaking into car lots and hanging out in impounded vehicles,’ the kid replied.

‘When you put it like that, it sounds too damn clinical.’

‘You mean like the truth?’

‘I mean like what the hell’re you doing here?’ Shepard asked.

That seemed to stump him, at least for a few seconds of silence.

‘Any of the Reds see you sniffing around here,’ Shepard added, to drive the point home, ‘they’re gonna think you’re looking to join up and recruit you on the spot. You ever tell a Red no before?’ The kid shook his head. ‘And that’s if you’re lucky. Other option isn’t so nice.’ The kid didn’t raise his hand or anything, so Shepard continued. ‘They’ll figure you’re sticking your nose into something that’s none of your business, and they’re not gonna give you a slap on the wrist and a half-hour shaved off your curfew for punishment, either.’

‘No kidding.’

‘Yeah, ‘cause I’m not the funny guy. You are—remember?’

‘So how’d you get in there?’ The kid looked up, measuring the height of the fence and judging it against his own height, then focused on Shepard again through the diamond-shaped wires. The shadows on his face kept shifting when the lights over Purgatory switched colors, sign rotating overhead. Always turning and turning, never really getting anywhere. Like tires skidding, losing traction.

‘I knocked three times and gave the secret password,’ Shepard said.

‘You climbed it.’

‘No kidding.’

‘Well…’ The kid licked his bottom lip. Shepard didn’t know how he saw it so clearly from so far away; it meant he must’ve been looking. ‘It can’t be too hard, then.’

The fence rattled as he got his hands in place, swinging one foot into a diamond, then the other. Shepard sat up. He took out his cigarette long enough to lick his lips and shoot the kid a whistle.

‘Gonna _have_ to call you Nosebleed after this,’ Shepard said. ‘When you break your face falling off of that thing.’

Halfway to the top was when you started getting cocky. After halfway, it didn’t just get twice as hard—because it got ten times harder, a hundred times, the final push taking every ounce of strength you had to make it without falling on your ass after. Nosebleed, meet gravity.

He was gonna tear his sweater and the color of blood wasn’t gonna match his shoes.

‘Alenko.’ His breath was coming quick and jerky now, but he was still climbing. The barbed-wire top wasn’t a leather jacket’s biggest enemy, but a sweater didn’t stand a chance against it. Not a snowball’s in hell. ‘…Kaidan. I’d, uh, shake your hand, too, only I’m a little busy right now.’

Shepard sucked smoke into his mouth and puffed it out again in a lopsided ring. The joke wasn’t funny; Alenko was breathless not from laughing at it, but from making it to the top of the fence.

‘I don’t remember inviting you in,’ Shepard said.

‘That’s ‘cause you didn’t,’ Alenko replied. His shoulder snagged on one of the sharp twists of wire and Shepard heard the sound the sweater made when it ripped.

And James called _him_ loco.

There were plenty of people out there crazier than him.

The whole damn night was crazy, the kind of thing that happened in _Blasto Vs. The Things From Outerspace_. At any second, Alenko was gonna sprout antennae and hold out his laser-gun and try to convince Shepard he came in peace, that it was time to take him to earth’s leaders.

_Joke’s on you, alien scum. We don’t have any leaders here. Only a bunch of rebels. Renegades on the streets and squares following orders ‘cause they don’t know how to make their own. You wanna conquer us? We won’t stand a chance ‘cause we don’t know how to stand together._

‘Uh,’ Kaidan said. Maybe it was _oof_. Whatever it was, Shepard watched him lose his balance while hoisting himself onto the other side, then catch it again right before he dropped the whole ten feet to the ground. He hung on, stubborn and weird, ripped sweater and all.

‘How’re you planning on telling your folks what happened to that sweater, anyway?’ Shepard asked.

‘I’ll think of something.’ Alenko’s feet, white sneakers still not scuffed, swung once over the ground, then back in the same direction. He felt around for some footing, sweater riding up at about the same time as Shepard realized he was watching it ride up.  

Alenko’s toe pressed down on the blacktop. His weight shifted, gravity restored. Shepard looked away, finishing his cigarette. He heard Alenko’s shoes tap the ground and the silence that came after.

Well—almost silence. But just like a cigarette, it didn’t last long.

‘How often do you smoke those things, anyway?’ Alenko asked.

‘Why, you want one?’

Alenko’s nose wrinkled. ‘…Yeah, no thanks. I don’t smoke.’

Of course he didn’t.

Shepard lit up again, cheeks hollowing even though his mouth was full of smoke. He blew another smoke ring and Alenko watched it disappear in the foggy night air. ‘Here for your friend like last time, huh?’

‘Not this time.’ Alenko held his ground better than Finch, Shepard noticed, but whether that made him smarter or stupider, there was no way of knowing without testing it in the field. ‘You came after us last night because you were thinking about stealing his car, right?’

‘This isn’t the latest issue of _Kaidan Alenko: Boy Detective_ , you know,’ Shepard said. ‘You’re not gonna solve the case and go home in time for dinner with the family and your lucky dog named Clue.’

‘Dinner’s long over, anyway.’ Alenko’s eyes lit up when Shepard’s cigarette glowed. ‘Feels like it ended forever ago.’

‘And I wouldn’t know about that ‘cause I don’t have dinner with the family, is that it?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Sure you didn’t.’ Shepard settled back against the windshield. Chances were Alenko would get bored, would think he made his point, and, finally, decide to leave. If he was looking for trouble, he could find it past any door in Gastown. He didn’t have to bug Shepard while he was planning a car theft. ‘It was implied.’

‘If that’s what you wanna think,’ Alenko said. ‘If that’s what you’re gonna think. Maybe I’m not the guy to change your mind.’

‘You seem like the guy to keep trying, though.’ Shepard closed both eyes, then opened one. Alenko was still there. The stars were still covered up by the clouds. ‘Something I can do for you, Nosebleed? Other than babysitting.’

‘Very funny. You’re the clown here, not me.’

He was right about one thing—the whole place was a circus. Being a lion had its perks, but at the end of the day, the Ringmaster called the shots, and the lion headed back into its cage.

‘Anyway…’ Alenko made a sound like somebody’d popped three of his four tires. He was losing steam—realizing where he was an abandoned used car and car parts lot in the bad part of town, how far away from home and whatever his old man had set up for him, whatever his old lady was making for dinner. The wrong side of the fence.  ‘…I came here to tell you to call it off. If you don’t, I’m gonna…’

Shepard opened both eyes. ‘Gonna what?’

Alenko swallowed. His throat, as clean-shaven as it was, bobbed once. ‘Then I’m gonna tell the police what I know. And, sure, maybe that makes me a real square in your book, but it’s the right thing to do.’

‘You sure are a piece of work, Nosebleed,’ Shepard said. He thought he saw Alenko’s mouth twist to one corner but it left in as much time it took Shepard to blink. It might’ve been nothing more than some dust in his eye, or the change of the colors on the sign over Purgatory from pink to red. Turning, turning. ‘You’ve gotta be pulling my leg.’

Alenko held up both hands. ‘No leg pulling over here.’

‘So out of the goodness of your heart and your dedication to…’ Shepard licked his bottom lip. It tasted like ash. There was a word he was looking for; he just had to pin it down. ‘…integrity,’ he decided finally, ‘you decided to come here first and warn me?’

‘When you’re taken in, you’ll be rehabilitated,’ Alenko said.

‘So I can look good in torn sweaters like you?’ Shepard’s leather jacket creaked. ‘Jeez, Nosebleed. You’re really something. You think you could teach me how to do your hair up nice and stiff like yours, too, or does that cost extra?’

‘I’m not kidding,’ Alenko said.

‘No kidding,’ Shepard replied.

The leather creaked. The blown out tires, nothing more than shredded black rubber, squeaked on the ground as Shepard shifted, crossing one leg over the other.

  
  
by [Crowthis](http://crowthis.tumblr.com)  


‘You’d better scram before somebody takes you seriously,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about me; I’m gonna lie back and enjoy the drive-in. Good view from here of the show. It’s called _Nosebleed Meets the Fence: Part Two._ Can’t wait to see how it ends.’

‘You’d risk all that for somebody else’s car when you’ve already got a set of wheels?’

Like a fly buzzing around the place, there was no getting rid of him. Shepard swung his legs over the hood of the busted hot-rod and eased off, pushing his hand through his hair. It didn’t stay out of his eyes but the effect made Alenko swallow again while Shepard stared him down.

Still holding steady. He hadn’t buckled under the pressure yet.

‘You’re starting to rattle my cage, Nosebleed,’ Shepard said.

‘That was kind of the plan, I guess,’ Alenko replied. ‘Shake you up, so you could see the kind of mistake you’re making.’

‘You gonna rehabilitate me personally?’

‘Am I gonna have to climb another fence?’

Shepard snorted. Smoke puffed between them and Alenko coughed, politely, then held out his hand.

Shepard didn’t shake it.

He moved past Alenko to the gate and grabbed the chain, pulling it aside. ‘Squares like you make things way more complicated than they need to be,’ he said, pulling the gate open. ‘Could’ve saved your sweater _and_ kept whatever excuse you’ve got up your sleeve for another rainy day.’

*


	2. Chapter 2

  
  
by [Crowthis](http://crowthis.tumblr.com)  


Kaidan Stubborn Alenko—also known as Nosebleed. That should’ve been his name. Even heading into Purgatory couldn’t stop him from following. ‘It’s gonna be more trouble than it’s worth,’ he said, dogging Shepard’s duck-and-weave through the crowd. ‘You have any idea what a car like that—sorry, didn’t mean to step on your—what a car like that costs?’

Shepard didn’t double back for him. He rode solo or not at all. No sidecars. ‘You have any idea how much it’s gonna hurt when I tell Grunt to kick you out of here?’

‘Grunt—I’m guessing a nickname like that means he’s all muscle. Maybe it’ll hurt as much as, I don’t know… As much as you’d spend on a red convertible?’

Shepard stopped by the far wall, where the jukebox was playing loud enough to drown out any chit-chat. Then, he nodded toward Grunt at the front door.

‘Big guy,’ Alenko said.

‘Real big,’ Shepard replied.

To Alenko’s credit, he didn’t turn white and try to get the hell out of dodge. Most people did when they saw Grunt. It was a natural reaction, a reflex, one of the tests to see if everything was in working order. Shepard kicked the jukebox with his heel and the music picked up again.

‘How’d you do that?’ Alenko asked.

‘Must’ve been magic,’ Shepard replied.

‘You don’t care about a single thing I’m saying, do you?’

‘Now you’re catching on, Nosebleed.’ Shepard folded his arms. The jukebox hummed against his back. Alenko stared at him with big brown eyes and his hair still holding its shape like he actually knew a greaser secret or two; whatever he was using on it, it was working better than anything else in Purgatory had a right to. ‘You gonna beat it or what? Squares like you don’t belong in a place like this.’

Finally, Alenko glanced over his shoulder—realizing, maybe for the first time, that they didn’t have the joint all to themselves. There was a whole nightclub full of low-lifes and bad news and Grunt and guys like Grunt. Like the saying went, it looked like Alenko wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

‘No trick to getting out of here, either,’ Shepard added. ‘You don’t even have to click your heels together and say there’s no place like home.’

‘I know the way. I just…like this song,’ Alenko said.

Shepard hadn’t been listening to the music, only feeling it hum. _Whole Lot Of Shakin’ Going On._

‘No kidding,’ Shepard said.

‘Maybe we could skip all the kidding for a change.’ Alenko looked so serious about it Shepard would’ve laughed, or chuckled at least, but the door blew open right in the middle of Jerry Lee Lewis’s second chorus and Grunt was signaling him. They had unwanted guests, and it wasn’t the beat this time.

It was worse than that. They were dealing with Timebomb Tim and his Cerberus gang.

Some days, you couldn’t win for losing.

Waking up on the wrong side of the bed had nothing to do with it. Waking up on the wrong side of the window—now that was another story. Finch on the other side of the room and Wrex at the doorway straightened up and Shepard kicked the jukebox again, this time with the flat of his foot, hard enough that the music screeched to a stop. No breaks on that thing. Shepard had to improvise. The dancing followed a second later, the noise of surprise drifting into silence like ash from a cigarette.

‘Party always stops when I walk in,’ Tim said, lighting up. His cigarette flared, then darkened. ‘You ever wonder why that is?’

‘You ever wonder why that never stops you from crashing the joint in the first place?’ Shepard replied.

A couple of regulars chuckled. Finch’s laugh was the loudest, which let Shepard know he was edging toward the door. Shepard had no way of knowing if he was planning on boxing Cerberus in or making a break for it, get out while the getting was still good.

After the last run-in—Shepard had left three of Timebomb Tim’s best hot-rods in the dust, one of them losing him around a sharp corner and the other two taking each other out after getting too close—Shepard hadn’t figured Cerberus would back off like good dogs with their tails between their legs. Timebomb Tim had a rep to maintain, same as anybody.

Only problem was, Shepard kept ruining it.

‘Security isn’t as tight around here as it should be.’ Tim didn’t wear leather but one look at him told you he was more than just another square in a suit. The cigarette flared. ‘Might want to have the Councilor look into that.’

‘Toss me a nickel, would you?’ Shepard asked. ‘Can’t have a party without music. Jukebox needs some grease, and you’re the guest of honor.’

‘Just look at you boys. There’s enough grease in this establishment to go around without my money, Shepard.’

‘Shepard,’ Alenko repeated. At least he had the brains to keep it quiet so only Shepard could hear him.

‘Then again,’ Shepard added, before Alenko could draw too much attention to himself, ‘it’s gonna be hard to have a good time with your mug ruining the atmosphere.’

‘Now, is that any way to show off hospitality in Purgatory?’ Tim leaned against the bar, lifting a drink that wasn’t his and swirling it in the glass, smoke rising from his half-finished cigarette. ‘You’ll lose business with an attitude like that. Might want to tell the Councilor his kids are turning away paying customers. No profit there.’

Tim drank. Shepard swallowed. He twisted the nickel between his thumb and forefinger until, sweaty, he knew his skin had to stink with the smell of metal. He kept it behind his back, running his hand along the front of the jukebox, looking for the sweet spot.

Somebody touched his wrist. It was Alenko, guiding him straight to the slot. Shepard slid the nickel in, turning it, staying slow and casual like Tim with his borrowed drink.

Alenko chose the song. Tim’s glass was almost down on the bartop when the music started, no warning, volume all the way up, like an engine being gunned in the middle of the night. Electricity pulsed through Purgatory, lighting it up, lighting fires under every ass in the place.

‘Go on and get outta here, Nosebleed,’ Shepard said, elbowing Alenko to the back door as the first chair crashed into the bar and Grunt’s laughter rose over the chaos. ‘I’m telling you to scram. That’s an order.’

Then, not waiting to see if Alenko was following them or following him, he went after Tim.

Somebody had to, and Shepard had a knuckle sandwich with Tim’s name on it.

One of Tim’s goons got to him first, grabbing him by the collar and slamming him into the bar. The Councilor wasn’t gonna be pleased with the mess, but making a statement meant making that mess in the first place. Shepard’s ribs crunched but they didn’t break and he slid free of the elbow that came down onto the bartop, meant for his throat.

That’d put a dent in the big guy’s style. And in the bartop.

Glass broke. Shattered, more like. Tim was right there in the eye of the storm, sidestepping a Red going down with one Cerberus to hold him and another one to punch, but his right-hand man—the Assassin—wasn’t with him.

Shepard took the bait and the opening and moved, soles of his shoes squealing like tires on the tiles. He was playing with fire and he knew it. He just wasn’t afraid like most people were of being burned.

The burn came from Timebomb Tim’s cigarette butt on Shepard’s cheek. It stung but Tim was already out of breath, Shepard slamming into his chest and—for a short, incredible second—pinning him against the bar.

‘You’re getting too old to be a party pooper,’ Shepard told him.

‘You’re still too young to know what the hell you’re messing with,’ Tim replied.

Shepard saw the whole thing coming. He didn’t flinch. His cheek was stinging, but he’d had worse.

Assassin came out of nowhere and he always hit below the belt—or would’ve, if Shepard wore one. The next thing Shepard knew, his face was down against the bartop and his burnt cheek was shouting, not stinging; he had a good view of the open doorway with Assassin holding him in place, Timebomb Tim giving him the slip and passing through the chaos without being touched. He stopped before he left, turning around slow on one fancy heel, adjusting his tie and the cuffs of his suit jacket. Then, catching Shepard’s eye, he saluted with two fingers and blew the party right after it’d finally gotten started.

No wonder nobody ever invited him anywhere. That kind of attitude couldn’t get stingier.

Shepard whirled—not just on his own steam, but because he was being spun around, gut first, into the counter. More glasses shattered, knocked onto the floor by his face.

Say one thing about the Reds: they knew how to show their guests a good time.

But what Assassin didn’t know—what growing up with any kind of training couldn’t teach you—was what a stray dog did when it was backed into the corner. Shepard bit down on his hand, hard, and felt his body go stiff enough that any impact’d do more damage than it would’ve a second earlier. Shepard kicked out behind him; neither of them bothered with fighting pretty. His elbow connected, then his knuckles, and then they were grabbing each other, holding each other down and pushing each other away at the same time. It was fast, furious, and it wasn’t pretty. It was how they did things in Purgatory.

Keeping the balance by killing the peace.

Assassin had some nice moves; Shepard had to give him that. Something cracked against Shepard’s face and it sounded like glass. It took him a dizzy moment before he realized Assassin had broken a bottle over his nose and another moment before the pain kicked in, while Assassin—predictably—also started kicking.

Shepard grabbed him by the front of his shirt. The least he could do was bleed all over it and he did, spitting into Assassin’s face. Assassin staggered, balance lost for just long enough that if Shepard could hit him wear it counted, take him out around the ankles, then—

Then, somebody hit Assassin over the head with a bar stool and he went down. Hard. Tiles rattling and everything.

‘Damn, Finch, it’s about time you joined in on the fun,’ Shepard said, wiping the blood off his mouth with the back of his hands. His knuckles had bruised up, too. They’d be worse in the morning but it wouldn’t last, and why bother with ice when the pain reminded you of where you came from?

‘Now who’s the nosebleed?’ Alenko asked.

He was still holding the bar stool.

‘Put that down before you hurt yourself,’ Shepard said. ‘Where the hell’d you learn to do that, anyway?’

‘Seemed like it was a no-brainer. Just pick it up and—’ Alenko nearly got himself clocked by a napkin holder as it went sailing by. The only that saved him was Shepard grabbing him by the front of his torn sweater with a bloody hand and pulling him out of the way.

As useful as Alenko was with that stool, he lost his balance when he tripped over Assassin, and Shepard caught him, both of them braced by the counter.

‘Crazy,’ Alenko added, shaking his head. ‘Is it always like this? Somebody could get hurt.’

The blood in Shepard’s mouth didn’t taste as sweet as pop from the fountain. Alenko’s sweater had blood down the front, stains in the shape of fingers.

‘You oughta see somebody about that shiner,’ Alenko said, reaching up to touch it. Shepard pulled away fast, the whole room starting to spin. It slowed down after a couple of seconds, even if the fight was still raging around them.

‘You’re kookie—you know that, Nosebleed?’ Shepard asked.

Alenko almost smiled, his mouth twisting at one corner. Half up, half down. Choosing one direction would only mean insulting the other. ‘Nobody’s ever told me that before,’ he said. ‘What do you say we get out of here before your friend comes around?’

It was the smartest thing Alenko’d said all night, but Shepard wasn’t about to tell him that or anything.

He kicked the jukebox on his way out, ducking to nab the nickel. It had to be lucky even if it didn’t land face up.

*


	3. Chapter 3

Rain meant one thing—a free shower. Once they were outside, Shepard turned his face to the sky and ignored Alenko clearing his throat about it.

‘Catching a cold?’ Shepard asked.

‘That’s not proper medical procedure for a nosebleed,’ Alenko said. After a pause, he added, ‘Since, you know… _you’re_ the nosebleed.’

Shepard didn’t have to swallow it or live it down or whatever Alenko was thinking. Hard to tell through all the rain, not to mention all the blood. Shepard turned toward him anyway.

‘If you pinch it and tilt your head back, it’ll stop a lot faster. Like this.’ Alenko demonstrated, a regular how-to class all by himself. ‘Or…not. If you want to be stubborn, I guess. Are those guys gonna come after us?’

_Us_. Shepard shook his head not as an answer but to get the word out of his ears—and to prove to the dizziness he was still standing, even when he was making the whole business harder for himself. Yeah. Still standing. On an angle, maybe, and the nosebleed thing was ticking him off, and now and then Alenko drifted out of focus before Shepard blinked and saw him, clear as daytime in the nighttime, but still standing.

‘I’m gonna have to start calling you Doc, huh?’ Shepard asked. ‘No, Doc—they’re not coming after us. You’re the one who hit Assassin over the head with a bar stool, anyway.’

‘… _Assassin_?’

‘Everybody else says it’s what he goes by, but some of us think it’s what his own momma named him.’

Alenko’s mouth twisted again and he wiped the rain off his cheek. Man, he looked like a mess, torn sweater covered in Shepard’s blood and flushed cheeks, bright eyes. ‘Sounds pretty wild.’

‘You know, if you’re looking for cheap thrills, you could always soup yourself up a hot rod with your old man’s wallet investing in the merchandise. Pop the clutch on outta here, even.’

‘…That’s not what I’m looking for.’ Alenko flexed his hand, looking at his knuckles. ‘’Cause I’m not looking for anything. …Guess I don’t know how to hit somebody without doing about as much damage in return.’

‘You hit someone? With _that_ fist?’

‘Left hook, I think. Didn’t even know the guy’s name,’ Alenko said. ‘I’m, uh… I’m not usually like this.’

‘No kidding,’ Shepard said.

By now, it was getting to be a chorus. A regular refrain. Shepard scuffed the ground with the heel of his shoe and it made a sound like a front wheel laying a patch. Chances were he’d never met a guy as on the stick as Doctor Kaidan Nosebleed Alenko and he never would again.

‘I’ve got something that might help with that shiner back at my place,’ Alenko said. ‘And I’m thinking, since all this came up, you’re not gonna be looking to steal that car tonight, anyway.’

‘You saying I don’t have any place better to be?’

Alenko glanced over his shoulder. ‘Well, I guess there’s always Purgatory.’ His mouth twisted. It was getting to be a habit with him. ‘Seems kinda pointed for a name, don’t you think?’

‘How’d you get here, anyway?’ Shepard asked. ‘You got any wheels of your own?’

‘Nothing like that. I, uh…hitched a ride with that friend of mine. …Not in the convertible.’

‘Your bright idea?’

‘Figured it didn’t make sense to bring it back to the scene of the crime.’

Too on the stick for his own good, Shepard thought. ‘So you’re looking to hitch a ride back too, huh?’

‘Only if you have an extra helmet.’

Shepard snorted, heading toward the bikes. It was just like he’d figured—Finch’s was already long gone and the rest of the Reds with him, tire streaks on the pavement. Timebomb Tim’s dogs hadn’t cut the tires or pulled out the wires this time, and Shepard touched Normandy’s handlebar, knuckles already swelling up, fingers already stiff.

‘I don’t even have _one_ helmet, Nosebleed,’ Shepard said.

Alenko moved to the other side of the bike, pretending like he knew what he was seeing when he checked her out. Wheels, mostly, and the SSV on the side, which Shepard had looked up one time in the library after hours, busting through the window without breaking the glass. _Special Service Vehicle._ Alenko reached out to trace the letters but stopped before he made contact.

‘Isn’t that dangerous?’

‘Sure is.’

‘…So that’s the whole point.’ Alenko shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘It’s raining, too. Don’t you ever crash?’

‘Where I’m from, a question like that might get a guy pounded,’ Shepard said. ‘You know, I don’t think you can take the heat on a ride like this.’

‘Try me,’ Alenko replied.

Shepard couldn’t just leave the nerd in front of Purgatory for when the rest of Tim’s dogs came stumbling out, Assassin included. Well, he could’ve, but the skid marks around the Normandy from the Reds’ rides felt like they were stamped over his chest, not just on the blacktop.

‘I’m not slowing down for anything or anybody,’ Shepard said.

‘Yeah. Okay,’ Alenko replied.

‘And even if you’re screaming and shouting, I’m not stopping.’

‘No stopping. You know, somehow, I didn’t think you would.’

‘And we’re gonna go faster than you’ve ever gone in your life, ‘cause if I’m caught driving around with a square like you…’

‘It might get a guy pounded where you’re from,’ Alenko repeated.

Now he was learning. Smart kid. He looked older the closer you got to him, too, which made Shepard realize just how close they were.

He wiped the blood off his mouth, spitting some onto the pavement, then swung his leg over Normandy’s leather seat, kicking up the sidestand and bracing her with his thighs.

‘All aboard to Nowheresville,’ Shepard said.

Alenko settled in behind him—not as easy as if he knew what he was doing, not as bad as it could’ve been for a first-timer. His hips bumped the small of Shepard’s back and his knees pressed into Shepard’s ribs, one of them still sore thanks to Assassin’s way of saying hello, Timebomb Tim’s specialty calling card. Why couldn’t he send a singing telegram or something, like a normal person? Shepard didn’t flinch but Alenko adjusted his hold anyway, sliding his arms around Shepard’s waist.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘You think you could try not to get my slacks ruined like my sweater?’

‘No promises.’ Shepard gunned the engine once and Normandy jumped to life, Alenko’s fingers tightening over the Shepard’s front zipper, twisting in the leather. ‘But you’ve got it all figured out, remember?’

‘Can’t hear you,’ Alenko began, but Shepard was already on the move, and Alenko’s voice was swallowed by the rain and the wind driving against their faces.

Some nights, Shepard didn’t have to see the road in front of him. He didn’t have to know where he was going to be good at getting there. Alenko was quiet—no cheers and shouts like it was a thrill ride—with only his grip showing when a sharp turn or an unplanned U-ie took him by surprise. Whenever his knees pressed into Shepard’s sides, Shepard felt the answering pain, but it kept him sharp, focused, blinking rainwater out of his eyes, keeping his pedal to the metal.

He knew one thing—it had to be the ride of Alenko’s life.

But soon enough the scenery started changing; it had to eventually. First there were real houses, and then there were real nice ones, and the rain had stopped by the time Shepard skidded onto Alenko’s neat little street in the middle of Candyland, rooftops made of gingerbread and looking good enough to eat.

Shepard hit the brakes, hard enough that Alenko crashed into his back with an _oof_. The engine guttered out. Shepard could hear Alenko’s breathing now and feel it, too, tickling his neck and the shell of his ear. He hadn’t been able to feel it before because of the wind, Alenko’s lips close to his collar, to his skin.

‘This is where you get off, Nosebleed,’ Shepard said.

‘You, too,’ Alenko replied. ‘My folks are away for the week anyway. Mom’s visiting family, and Dad’s…’ His breath skidded just like Normandy. ‘…Dad’s on business.’

‘Sounds real fancy. Still have to get back in by curfew. And you’re not the type to throw a party while the cats are away—are you, Nosebleed?’

‘What makes you think that, Shepard?’

There it was, bound to come out sooner or later. It was one more present Shepard had to thank Timebomb Tim for.

‘What makes you think you can call me Shepard?’

‘Well…’ Alenko hadn’t let go yet. Anybody else would’ve been glad to wobble off, catch their balance, try not to fall over as they stumbled away. Most people only _thought_ they wanted to go fast. And when they finally got the chance, all they wanted was to stop the ride and get off. ‘…I’d call you Nosebleed, but maybe it’s too obvious. Besides, that’s what you keep calling me. It’d get confusing if we had the same nickname.’

Shepard could see it now. Sitting in a room called a foyer, bleeding on the furniture, waiting for Alenko to come out with the first aid kit his mom kept under the kitchen sink and peas from the freezer or, even better, a fresh slab of steak. What Shepard might’ve called dinner on a good day Alenko’d ruin just to bring the swelling in his eye down. He’d get on one knee, kneeling in front of Shepard, putting a hand on his thigh, telling him to hold still, that it wouldn’t hurt—at least not too much, anyway. And Shepard would tell him how he’d been through worse, ‘cause he had, and bite the inside of his cheek while Alenko dabbed the cut on his nose and the burn on his cheekbone with something that stung more than it would’ve without the treatment.

The inside of the house… Shepard couldn’t picture that. Even when he blinked, the wallpaper he had in mind kept changing, big sunny windows even though it was the middle of the night.

_Shepard_ , Alenko would say.

Alenko eased himself off the bike, steadying himself one-handed on Shepard’s shoulder. ‘Sorry,’ he said, rolling up his torn sweater sleeve over his elbow. ‘You’re right, Shepard. That was definitely the ride of my life. I’ve never gone so fast before.’

‘Yeah, well—this is where the ride stops.’ Shepard gunned the engine loud enough to startle Alenko into taking a step back. It worked like a charm, and Shepard had room to maneuver around him, another sharp U-ie that turned him in the direction he’d come from, the direction he’d always been heading. Like spinning a loaded coin. ‘Free of charge.’

‘Shepard—’ Alenko began.

‘You’ve worn my name out enough for one night,’ Shepard said. The engine made enough noise to swallow his words. A couple of lights went on in the windows and Normandy’s tires squealed on the pavement as he gave Alenko the royal shaft, because it was the only thing they’d both understand either way.

*

Finch showed up the next afternoon like a bad penny or a cat you couldn’t chase off, shaking Shepard out of another one of those dreams of his. This time, Shepard was up in the sky and he was falling, bouncing between stars like he was a pinball in the machine pinging off obstacles, hoping there were enough of those between him and the ground.

‘Great,’ Shepard said. ‘Your mug’s just what I want to see when I wake up.’

‘Looking good yourself, Shep,’ Finch replied. ‘Black-and-blue’s really your color. Matches those baby blues of yours. You play with fire, you’re gonna get burned. Say, you got any grub?’

‘This isn’t exactly a two star motel, Finch.’ Shepard rolled out his neck, wincing when it cracked, when the sore muscles around his ribs pulled too hard in a simple stretch. His face was throbbing now. ‘So why’re you really here?’

Finch held up his hands like he was protesting innocence but, as usual, he couldn’t make the act last for more than a second or two, tops.

‘Okay, okay, you got me, Shep. Turns out that flip-top you were casing the other night? It’s _hot_. Belongs to somebody we don’t want sniffing around our business. But, you know… We’ve gotta find some way to make up on damages to Purgatory. And you know the Councilor. We pay if we don’t pay.’

Finch leaned against the window, eyeing the view, then rolling his eyes from the smell.

‘Yeah,’ Shepard said. ‘I’ve met the Councilor. I know his style. What’s your point, Finch?’

‘Point is, we’ve gotta make it up to him somehow. Lay low for a while, even. See what we can rustle up. Try not to break anymore bar stools.’ Finch grinned. ‘…Breaking Cerberus face, on the other hand… Now that’s what I’m talking about.’

That was Finch’s problem: not being able to put two and two together to come up with four.

‘Lay low _and_ scrounge up the cash for repairs to Purgatory, huh?’ Shepard asked. ‘You suggesting we take up legit jobs, Finch? Hey, how about this: I’ll work at the ice cream parlor, you work at the five and dime.’

‘You’re gonna be a soda jerk, huh? Emphasis on the _jerk_.’ It would’ve been a good line, except Finch was too proud of himself and it ruined the moment. ‘Do what you do best, Shep. You’ve got one of those faces. I’m thinking it’s those baby blues.’

‘Get outta here, Finch, before I kick you out. Emphasis on the _kick_.’

Finch held up his hands, moving backward, then dusted his palms off on the front of his jacket. ‘I’m going, I’m going. Didn’t like the scenery around here anyway. See you around, Shep.’

‘Not if I see you first.’

Shepard tipped his head back against the window frame, listening for the sound of Finch’s bike pulling away. The weather was actually nice for a change, cool and crisp and sunny, but Shepard knew better than anyone how fast that could change. He tugged the nickel out of his pocket, flipped it, and caught it against the back of his arm.

‘Heads,’ he said.

He lifted his palm.

_Tails_.

So that was how it was gonna be.

Between jobs, when the Councilor wanted the Reds to lay low, could feel kind of like going on vacation. Too much time to do nothing; more often than not at least one of the guys landed himself in some real trouble. Shepard wasn’t leader of the pack; he didn’t have to look after the new kids who couldn’t look out for themselves. They’d learn or they wouldn’t and that was that.

His ribs ached when he stood. His cheek throbbed and the inside of his mouth tasted like old, dried blood. More of the same had crusted over his upper lip in the night; he flaked it off with his fingernail before he remembered how many punches he’d landed the night before, how swollen and split his knuckles were. He shook out his hand, flexing and curling his fingers, until they were moving again. Not easily, but he’d live.

Without a doctor, even.

Doctor Nosebleed.

Shepard rolled his eyes and scraped the blood off his jacket in the mirror, rubbing the blood off his lips. His so-called ‘baby blues’ stared back at him through the streaks on the glass. They looked hard. One of them was swollen at the corner, enough to make his face uneven.

‘Grody,’ he said. There was pink on his teeth and he licked them clean.

Maybe the other guys didn’t know what to do with their free time, but Shepard had one card up his sleeve that never failed when he played it. He’d go for a ride. Get lost. Fly all day and only come down when he had to—or this time could be it, the time he never came down again.

He hopped on Normandy and got three blocks before she ran out of fuel. Sputtering and stinking, she crawled to a stop, and Shepard wheeled her the rest of the way to get her filled up again.

‘Yeah,’ he said, rubbing the warm leather seat. ‘I know how you feel.’

They couldn’t let on to it, though. Couldn’t show when they were running on empty. Shepard squared his shoulders and wheeled Normandy behind the gas station to smoke, waiting for his chance to nab some gasoline while the station jerk was flirting with some baby in the front.

Except that was when the red convertible pulled up to the station, tailpipe riding too low. Her engine sounded like it needed some love it was never gonna get, not with the bad news behind the wheel. Shepard leaned against the wall, watching the cube get out and mess with the self-fill station; when he called the attendant over, Shepard had the clearest shot for getting what he needed and getting on the road again. Free and clear for hours, no such thing as fresh air.

But Alenko was crammed in the back seat with a brand new sweater on. Shepard took a drag of his cigarette, still looking Alenko’s way when Alenko finally realized he was being watched. He stiffened up. He didn’t know what it was he was feeling, just that he was feeling it.

Another guy had crammed in with him in the backseat and some dolly had shotgun, the three of them laughing and telling jokes and looking ready for a wild Saturday afternoon getting ice cream sundaes and having picnics in the park. Shepard could see it now, ending in a sock hop with _chaperones_ , and he rolled his eyes as Alenko finally looked his way.

Opposite sides of the gas station. Opposite sides of the world, practically. Shepard pushed off the wall and headed for the gas, grabbing himself a spare gallon, Alenko watching him the whole time.

  
  
by [Crowthis](http://crowthis.tumblr.com)  


Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. With nosebleeds like Alenko, there always had to be a _tune in next time_ or a _meanwhile, back at the ranch…_ Alenko’s shadow with the bump of hair at the top fell over Shepard’s back while he was pouring the gas, two cigarette stubs crushed in front of the back wheel.

‘You should let me pay for that,’ Alenko said. ‘I made you go out of your way last night—ran out what you had in your tank.’

‘Got it covered,’ Shepard replied.

‘With a five-fingered discount, right?’ Alenko must’ve been proud of himself for that one, just like Finch. ‘C’mon. I can’t let you—’

‘Who’s gonna stop me, exactly?’ Shepard turned. He didn’t have the high ground, but he didn’t think it’d make much of a difference in staring Alenko down, either. He hadn’t expected Alenko to be so tall, for one thing, or so good-looking in broad daylight. ‘You, Nosebleed?’

‘You look like you’ve been through hell, Shepard,’ Alenko said. ‘…Well, through Purgatory, at least. Did you even put anything on that shiner last night?’

‘Wrapped a nice cold steak in a doily and put my feet up for a bubble bath after,’ Shepard replied. ‘Guess steaks and doilies and bubble baths aren’t what they used to be.’

‘Could you just…wait here?’ Alenko went for his wallet. ‘I’m gonna go see if there’s a first aid kit I can get in there. Nothing up my sleeves, I promise.’

They were rolled up to his elbows so Shepard could see he was being straight about it. Shepard shrugged and shifted his weight onto his heels, checking out one of Normandy’s tires. If he was still there when Alenko got back, it wouldn’t be because he was waiting for Alenko to get back.

The station door jingled nearby. Alenko’s friend—some blond with a flat-top who was letting the hose take him three falls out of three—hadn’t finished his business yet. Of all of them, the dolly was the only one who didn’t look like a waste. But the others weren’t special no matter how they dressed themselves up.

The bell jingled again. Alenko’s footsteps were quick but measured; he might’ve been racing but he wasn’t being reckless about it.

‘You’re still here,’ he said.

Okay. Maybe he was a little breathless.

‘Looks like it,’ Shepard replied. ‘Unless I’ve got a twin brother I never told you about and we pulled a switcheroo on you.’

‘You haven’t told me much, so I guess I’d have to believe it.’ Alenko crouched next to him, resting a first-aid kit on his thighs, reaching out to Shepard’s face. Shepard moved away from the touch, dodging and weaving like he was a champion lightweight in the middle of the ring, and Alenko sighed, like Shepard was the one bothering him in this equation even though it was obviously the other way around. ‘That burn of yours isn’t looking so good, Shepard. You don’t even have to bandage it up, but at least let me put something on it so it doesn’t get infected.’

‘You’re crazy, Nosebleed. Anybody ever tell you that?’ Shepard asked.

Alenko’s mouth did the twisty thing, like a new dance Shepard hadn’t heard of, a new song delivered to the jukebox while he was still sleeping. ‘Not lately. Maybe… Maybe I miss it.’

‘And maybe you’re just crazy.’

‘…Yeah. Maybe.’ Alenko’s mouth didn’t untwist. Neither did his hair. He opened the kit and knew exactly where to go first, rubbing alcohol and cotton balls.

‘Let me guess—you were some kind of boy scout,’ Shepard said. ‘…And you still are.’

‘…Not exactly.’ Alenko daubed the first cotton ball against Shepard’s cheek. It stung and Shepard almost hissed before he bit down on the inside of his mouth, blinking once to keep his eyes from watering. The pain didn’t fade; it only got worse. Sometimes healing a thing hurt more than breaking it in the first place—which was exactly why he wanted to go this far, getting himself looked after like he even needed it. ‘How’s that? Still stinging?’

‘Barely feel it.’

‘You’re a pretty good liar, Shepard. Just not good enough.’ The cotton ball came away stained. Alenko bunched it up but he didn’t toss it, twisting the second between his thumb and forefinger. The same ritual applied. Rubbing alcohol first, daubing it on the cheek second, raw skin angry and mean and Shepard feeling like a real fream. ‘How about now?’

‘Why—you looking to get a medal for good citizenship?’ Shepard touched the burn when Alenko went for the third cotton ball and Alenko chased his hand off, fingertips brushing Shepard’s knuckles.

‘Hey—let me take a look at those, too,’ he said.

‘Two medals, huh?’ Shepard replied. ‘What about your friends, anyway?’

‘Who, Conrad? Yeah, I don’t think so. It’ll take him another ten minutes to fill that thing up.’ Alenko looked over his shoulder once anyway and Shepard followed; the flat-top who didn’t deserve a pair of wheels like the one he had was still trying to show off for the other two in the convertible. ‘And Jenkins and Ash are kind of going steady, so…’

‘So you’re the third wheel?’ Shepard asked.

Alenko chuckled, hot breath on Shepard’s stinging cheekbone. ‘Your ride wouldn’t be much fun with three wheels, either.’

Somewhere along the line—distracted by the conversation and the sunlight glinting off the paint-job on the convertible—Shepard must’ve been distracted, because the next thing he knew, Alenko was holding his hand, cleaning his knuckles with more of the same. This time, the cotton ball came away pink, dried blood scrubbed off pink skin, cuts already starting to heal around tobacco stains.

‘You telling me you didn’t bust a knuckle or two last night?’ Shepard asked.

‘…I know how to throw a punch,’ Alenko admitted.

‘They teach you that in the boy scouts?’

‘I was never in the boy scouts, either.’ Alenko turned Shepard’s hand over in his. Alenko’s knuckles were barely swollen, and it was like he’d said: he’d only thrown one left hook, and he knew how to do it so it didn’t go wild and mean more damage for the home team than good. Shepard only recognized the bruises because he knew everything there was to know about bruises. ‘It’s kind of a long story.’

_I don’t like long stories_ , Shepard was about to say, only the car horn honking like wild cut him off before he could start. ‘Hey, K! Let’s roll!’

‘Your buddy’s a real winner,’ Shepard said.

‘He’s not all bad.’ Alenko paused. ‘Hey, you wanna come with?’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘I’m not the best at cracking jokes, usually. And this time… I’m serious. There’s room in the back seat; Jenkins and Ash, they won’t mind. Conrad might get some crazy ideas about wanting a bike like yours, but if you can make it through a day of Conrad, you can make it through anything.’

Shepard already knew he could make it through anything.

‘Don’t tell me you’re chicken,’ Alenko added.

‘I’m not leaving my ride and I don’t sit in the back,’ Shepard said.

‘So you don’t think you could keep up, is that it?’

‘I’d leave you squares in the dust and you know it, Nosebleed.’ Shepard licked his bottom lip—split—and the honking started again, twice as impatient.

‘Don’t know it ‘til I’ve seen it,’ Alenko replied. ‘But, hey, I get it. Conrad might not be the best driver, sure, but he can tear up the asphalt in a ride like that. Might be a blow to your ego if you couldn’t keep up.’

‘I’ll beat you to the ice cream parlor, but I’m not going inside,’ Shepard said.

‘…How’d you know we were going to the ice cream parlor, anyway?’ Alenko asked.

Shepard straightened, close enough to Alenko that he could smell his aftershave. For all Shepard knew, he was even wearing cologne. Whatever it was, it smelled fresh and clean—and Shepard had nothing to compare it to, fingers stained with gasoline, stinking of rubber and smoke.

‘A group like you? It was either ice cream parlor or sock hop. …A little early right now for the sock hop.’ Shepard turned up his collar and wheeled Normandy into position. When he slid on, he thought he saw something like desire in Alenko’s eyes. Once you took a ride on the wild side, you never forgot it. A part of you could never go back to the way things used to be. ‘I’m not gonna go easy on your friend just because he’s a space case.’

‘Yeah. I know.’ Alenko’s big brown eyes lingered on Normandy, the SSV on her side, for a few more seconds before he shook his head and shook it off. ‘Of course you won’t. It’s gotta be a fair race. But if we beat you—’

‘Snowball’s chance in hell of that, Nosebleed.’

‘—but if we _do_ , then I get to buy you some ice cream.’

‘And when you don’t?’

Alenko paused, biting his bottom lip. _Twisty_. The kid was a regular cyclone. ‘Then I guess you’ll be long gone.’

When Shepard gunned the engine, Alenko took a step back. But it wasn’t because he was afraid or startled; if Shepard hadn’t known better, he would’ve said Alenko saw the sudden sound coming and he was being the one thing guys like him never could figure out.

Respectful

‘No cheating, though,’ Alenko added. ‘You’ve gotta wait for us to start before you step on the gas, okay?’

‘It’s a deal, Nosebleed.’ Shepard spat on his hand and held it out, waiting for Alenko to take another step back, to make a face that was all disapproval and heavy eyebrows.

Instead, he shook Shepard’s hand—without spitting into his palm first, of course, but without flinching, either. His eyes got a lock on Shepard’s and they were just holding hands, staring at each other all deep and meaningful, until Shepard pulled back and wrapped his fingers around the handlebar and Alenko high-tailed it to the convertible where he belonged. His jeans were tight—rockabilly tight, even. But his sweater was pure square, plain and simple.

He hopped into the backseat with the rest of his crew, leaned over the front to whispered something to his flap-top pal, and just like that, they started to fly.

So Shepard stepped on the gas.

*


	4. Chapter 4

  
  
by [Crowthis](http://crowthis.tumblr.com)  


A race was only one part speed and one part luck. The other parts, as many of them as there were, were about not looking back for anything.

Speed mattered. Bumps in the road along the way didn’t. Anybody behind you didn’t, either. Shepard kept his head down and the wind whipped around his ears until they were pink, until the shells ached; he could barely hear the whooping going on in the red flip-top to his left.

A flip-top with a flat-top behind the wheel. Shepard could just see the tagline now, hoisted up in bright lights over the movie theater—giving the squares going out together on Friday nights something that didn’t even come close to the real thrill of life in the fast lane.

But what they didn’t know would only kill them slow.

Shepard wasn’t losing this one.

Speed, luck and not looking back, not looking over. The red paint-job keeping even with him wouldn’t know what hit it when he put on his last burst of speed, and then—

Then, he’d keep going while they pulled into park. He’d leave it all behind.

His fingers cramped around the handlebars. That was the way Normandy liked it, the way Shepard liked it.

Only the red convertible had started gaining on him.

He wasn’t sure about it at first, not until the carrying on and cheering got louder and the squeal of the tires followed, and Shepard realized he was sweating about the same time he realized Flat-Top Conrad wasn’t actually driving. It was the dolly—what had Alenko called her?

Ash.

Okay. No problem. Shepard didn’t mind the extra sweat, taking on a challenge while guys like Finch were relaxing.

Normandy hadn’t been put through a test like this since Timebomb Tim’d thought he could take the Reds on for speed. Shepard had broken his collarbone that night and it never healed right again, but he’d won the race and kept Normandy from getting a single scratch on her.

This was nothing compared to that night. Easy as pie. A piece of cake.

An ice cream sundae with a cherry on top.

The red convertible kept gaining ground.

The dolly was almost fearless; she didn’t make a sound. Neither did Alenko, as far as Shepard knew. The other two cheered their heads off—or begged for mercy, for Ash to stop the ride so they could get off—and Shepard almost joined in, heart kicking into full gear. Normandy wasn’t the only one racing. Shepard’s blood had joined her.

They took it around the block a couple of times and Ash sped ahead as soon as the ice cream parlor was in sight. Neck and neck until the finish line, Shepard didn’t know who pulled into the parking lot first: brakes screeching, tires squealing, burnt rubber stinking up the atmosphere.

Shepard turned. His shoulders ached and his fingers had almost frozen around the handlebars.

Ash—strong face, hair tugged back into some kind of prissy bun—turned with him. ‘Looks like a tie,’ she said. ‘…Didn’t want to hurt your feelings too much by winning, so I took it easy on you our first time out. Forgive me?’

‘Why’d you do a dumb thing like that?’ Conrad asked. ‘I would’ve gone all the way—yes, sir, you betcha.’

Alenko reached up and tucked one lock of loose hair back into place. If Shepard hadn’t looked his way at the right moment, he never would’ve known it’d fallen free in the first place.

‘We didn’t figure out what the terms of a tie were gonna be,’ Alenko said. ‘You got a coin we could flip for it or something, Shepard?’

‘That’s a beaut you’ve got there, Shepard,’ Conrad added. ‘Hey, the name’s Conrad—Conrad Verner. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. Say, where’d you get a jacket like that one, anyway? It looks like the real deal and everything.’

‘No. Kidding,’ Shepard said.

Alenko cleared his throat, opening up the side door and practically tumbling out. ‘I think I’ve got something we could use for a coin toss.’

‘So do I,’ Shepard said. He fished the nickel out of his pocket. ‘…I mean, I don’t know what you’ve got. Yours could be loaded.’

‘So could yours,’ Alenko pointed out.

Shepard flipped the nickel in the air. ‘Tails,’ he said. He caught it against the back of his hand and when he lifted his palm, Alenko stepped closer.

_Heads_.

‘Guess this is just my lucky day,’ Alenko said. ‘You find your sea legs yet, Jenkins?’

‘Ashley Williams,’ Jenkins replied, looking green around the gills, whistle lacking punch. ‘Can’t ride with her—and ruined for everybody else in the whole wide world once you have.’

Ash clapped him on the shoulder. Hard, from the looks of it. He spluttered. ‘You owe me a rematch, Shepard. One without anybody cramping our style or slowing us down.’

‘Yeah,’ Shepard said. Something told him his lucky nickel might’ve been the opposite of lucky. And if it wasn’t for bad luck, some people wouldn’t have any luck at all.

‘So,’ Alenko said. ‘What’re you having?’

Conrad and Jenkins had to lean on each other to stay upright, Ash leading the way into the joint, called _Serrice’s Ice Cream Parlor and Shoppe._

Shop. With an extra p and an e that didn’t belong.

‘Look, Nosebleed,’ Shepard said, ‘I’m not exactly the ice cream parlor and _shoppe_ kind of guy. You take me in there, you’re gonna have a lot of explaining to do, and it might just ruin your reputation instead of your sweater, this time.’

Shepard didn’t recognize the way Alenko’s hair stayed up—not with his flopping over his forehead every chance it got, getting into his eyes whenever the breeze kicked up. It sure was a nice day, for anybody who cared about that kind of thing. Maybe a little too cold for ice cream, not that it mattered to Shepard.

‘You don’t think you could handle yourself in there, huh?’ Alenko asked.

‘You’re not gonna pull the same move twice on me, Alenko,’ Shepard said.

‘… _Shepard_.’

‘Okay, okay. Don’t write home to mom and pop or anything. It’s no big deal.’

‘I won the coin toss,’ Alenko said. ‘It’s fair and square.’

Emphasis on the square, Shepard thought. He wheeled Normandy in next to the convertible and the two of them were a regular Laurel and Hardy side by side.

‘It’s ice cream,’ Alenko added. ‘Everybody likes ice cream.’

‘Everybody in your pretty little world, maybe.’ The shop window had gold and blue lettering on the glass. _Shoppe_. Shepard still couldn’t get over that. If any of the Reds saw him in a place like this—well, either he’d have to kill them so it wouldn’t get out, or die of embarrassment right then and there. Only the Reds would never come around this way—not in broad daylight—so Shepard didn’t have to worry about that part of the equation.

The door jingled when they stepped inside. There was a jukebox in the _shoppe_ , too, playing something real cheerful they didn’t bother with sending to Purgatory. Shepard’s sneakers had holes in them. His collar, turned up, tickled his jaw. And, yeah, everybody in the joint was staring his way, wondering if he was there to steal their tires and their girlfriends.

Shepard stuffed his hands in his pockets, his fingers closing around the nickel. Even knowing how it’d screwed him over, he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. There was something familiar about it, warm and not too heavy.

Ash and the others were sitting on stools by the window. Conrad waved them over. Jenkins was totally in love and Shepard didn’t blame him. The soda jerk behind the bar adjusted his soda jerk hat, white paper with a red trim, and Shepard rolled out his shoulders, leaning against the counter.

‘So,’ he said. ‘What’s good here?’

‘The ice cream, mostly,’ Conrad replied. Shepard wished it wasn’t true, but the guy was a hundred percent on the level with him. Totally serious and like this all the time, from the looks of things. Alenko hadn’t been kidding about needing to survive the experience. ‘You’ve never been to Serrice’s? Seriously? Everybody comes here. It’s the best in town.’

‘Well,’ Shepard said. ‘Not everybody.’

Alenko nudged out a fifth stool with his toe. ‘Might as well make yourself comfortable.’

‘Who says I’m not comfortable?’ Shepard raked his fingers through his hair. He had all the exits pegged, not to mention the distance between him and the football players with their paper shakers, all in uniform, pompoms and everything, sitting in the corner booth.

‘You’re casing the joint, Shepard,’ Alenko said.

‘Gosh,’ Conrad added. ‘Ain’t that something? That’s something, all right.’

‘How about we get the ice cream and get this over with,’ Shepard said. ‘That way I won’t be bringing the property value down too much.’

They ordered sundaes. Cherries on top, of course. Hot fudge and whipped cream, _the works_. Conrad got a banana split all by himself and Shepard made the obvious joke, _why don’t you make like a banana, Conrad_ , and Ash laughed before sucking on the straw of her pop. ‘He’s got you there, Conrad,’ she said.

‘Yeah—yeah, good one, Shepard,’ Conrad added.

‘I make like root beer and float, usually,’ Shepard said.

‘When you’re not making like milk and shaking.’ Alenko’s spoon bumped Shepard’s in the ice cream bowl with a ting. ‘That was a, uh…’

‘You were right about you and kidding around, anyway,’ Shepard said. ‘You’re no damn good at it.’

‘Better stick to the ice cream,’ Alenko agreed.

There was too much fudge; Shepard didn’t bother with the whipped cream. The ice cream itself was cold against the backs of his teeth, on his tongue, and it turned Alenko’s lips pink, soft and wet when he licked them or the tip of his spoon.

It didn’t matter whether it tasted good or bad. Either way, they’d get to the bottom soon enough, Alenko scraping up the last of the chocolate swirls, no more reasons—no more excuses—for why Shepard was still hanging around.

‘I sure would like to see how your bike rides,’ Conrad said. ‘I sure would.’

‘I sure would like a tree that grows money instead of leaves,’ Shepard replied. ‘Can’t always get what we want, though. Besides, you wouldn’t be able to handle her.’

‘Sure I would. I’ve had lessons and everything. You still haven’t seen _me_ behind the wheel, Shepard.’

‘I’ll live somehow,’ Shepard said. ‘But it’s time for me to split.’

‘Don’t forget our rematch,’ Ash added.

Shepard waved over his shoulder. The bell above the door jingled on his way out. The sun was bright enough that Shepard squinted when the light hit him, but there were clouds in the distance. Alenko’s gang—if they could even be called that—were gonna be sorry if they didn’t roll up the top of their convertible and Shepard didn’t think Normandy was in the mood for getting soaked. Neither was he. The ice cream’d left his teeth cold.

‘Hey, wait—Shepard.’ Alenko’s footsteps had this quiet quality to them, like they really thought they weren’t disturbing anything. But they were throwing everything off—and Shepard especially.

‘You don’t have to thank anybody after they fulfill their end of a winning bet, you know,’ Shepard said. ‘The ice cream was your thing, remember? Tell yourself you’re welcome, pat yourself on the back, and call it a day.’

‘Yeah. I remember. I was just wondering where you were headed now, that’s all’

Shepard pointed at the clouds. ‘You see those?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, I see them.’

‘Well, I’m going in the opposite direction,’ Shepard said. ‘And who knows—maybe I’m not coming back.’

‘All over a sundae at Serrice’s?’ Alenko paused, twisty in the wrong directions and for the wrong reasons. ‘No, I know. It’s not just about the sundae.’

‘Oh yeah? What is it about, then?’

‘All that _bringing down the property value_ stuff. That’s what it’s about. You think you don’t belong here, so you’re getting out while the getting’s good.’

‘Okay, Kid Detective,’ Shepard said, still waiting for Alenko to jump—someday—at the sound of the engine being gunned. He didn’t, holding his ground, just like the clouds gathering on Shepard’s other side, both of them boxing him in somehow. He was a regular sandwich now, toothpick through the middle and everything. And he’d let it happen. He wasn’t ever this careless. He never looked back. ‘You had your fun. Now go home so you aren’t late for dinner.’

‘I told you—my folks aren’t around this week,’ Alenko replied. ‘You oughta take a look at your assumptions sometime. Maybe… Maybe ask yourself where they’re coming from. If you’re looking at yourself as closely as you’re looking at other people, even.’

‘I know where I’m coming from.’ Shepard’s fingers were still stiff from the race with Ash earlier. He could’ve gone for another one of those, blowing off steam and the sweet taste of sugar in his mouth, knowing Alenko’s tasted the same. Only under Shepard’s tongue was tobacco and unfiltered smoke, while Alenko had minty-fresh toothpaste and lollipops and candy canes.

‘You don’t know where _I’m_ coming from, though.’

‘That’s ‘cause I don’t have to. It’s all about where you’re headed that counts.’ Shepard guided Normandy around Alenko, who was standing there with balled up fists and the shadows of old bruises on his knuckles, not getting too close. Alenko had a dangerous gravity. Shepard didn’t mind crashing, but only when he was the driving force, the one behind the handlebars. Nobody else was taking him for a ride, not anyone and not anywhere.

‘Let me ride with you,’ Alenko said. ‘I… You know, I actually kind of liked it.’

Shepard snorted. ‘Of course you did. There’s no ride like Normandy.’

‘SSV,’ Alenko agreed. ‘Conrad was right about one thing, anyway. She really is a beaut, Shepard.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

‘I could.’ Alenko’s voice had gotten deeper, a rough edge like a loose tailpipe rusting on the blacktop. Shepard flicked his hair off his forehead. He needed a smoke, bad, to cover up the other tastes in his mouth. ‘I mean, there’s a lot of stuff I could. And I’m not saying that’s because you don’t know anything, either. I don’t think that’s true at all. I’m just saying… We don’t know each other. Not yet. And nobody but the two of us can change that.’

‘You wanna ride with me,’ Shepard repeated.

‘That’s what I’m saying,’ Alenko replied.

‘I still don’t have any helmets,’ Shepard said. ‘No room for them. And that’s not about to change any time soon.’

‘I didn’t figure it would. I wasn’t looking to change that.’

‘You think this is some kind of vacation while mom and pop are away, right?’ Pretty house. Big tree in the front. Swing in the back. A white fence all around it and quiet, sleepy neighbors going in and out at the same hour every day, making each other bag lunches while eating breakfast, pouring cups of coffee and scrambling eggs and flipping pancakes.

Shepard knew all about that stuff. He’d seen it before the main attractions at the drive-in, sneaking into the back with Finch, not asking him where he’d picked up that bag of half-empty popcorn. Ad reels for laundry detergent and cake mix and TV dinners, kids around the radio listening to their westerns every Monday night.

‘Good, ‘cause it isn’t,’ Shepard said. ‘I’ve got my life, and you’ve got yours. Find some other sucker to ride with because you’re bored, Nosebleed. Your little friends were cute and all, but they’re not my style.’

‘Shepard—’ Alenko began.

Shepard didn’t wait. He never did. ‘Hey,’ he added, ‘why don’t you all get bikes of your own for your birthdays? Then you can have fun together whenever you want to head out for a spin. You won’t even need to pay the chauffeur with ice cream at the _shoppe_.

‘That isn’t fair,’ Alenko replied.

‘Life’s not fair.’ The way Alenko’s mouth twisted, he already knew that. Most guys in his clean white shoes didn’t. ‘I’m outta here.’

Shepard left a trail of exhaust behind him from burning the gasoline he’d stolen—or, if his suspicions were right, the gasoline Alenko’d paid for while he went into the station looking for a first aid kit. The wind on Shepard’s cheek made it sting. Letting somebody patch you up like that was dangerous, if you let your body get used to being treated nice for a change.

And Shepard couldn’t afford all that—just like he couldn’t afford the gasoline without, how did Alenko put it, the five-fingered discount he’d given himself.

Only present worth unwrapping.

It was Alenko’s own fault for getting so mixed up in Shepard’s business, in his nightlife, in his brain and in his world. Hell, there he was thinking Shepard was a theme park ride he could get off and on whenever he wanted and even if that was true, something Shepard would stoop to, Alenko hadn’t shelled out for nearly enough for tickets. He even had Shepard’s head as scrambled as the eggs his mom made him in the morning, while his pop read the newspaper over a cup of hot coffee, the windows open, sunlight streaming into the dinette.

For some reason, Shepard could only see it happening in black and white. Glossy lipstick, not a hair out of place—just like Alenko’s.

Only his had fallen loose during that one race. It wasn’t much, and he’d put it back where it belonged so fast it almost didn’t matter, only Shepard…

Shepard had been the only guy to see it.

Now, Alenko was back in the lot behind Serrice’s, stuck with an extra p and e, a car that was too much engine for the cube who owned it.

He only thought he wanted to get out and see life from Shepard’s lane for a change. The grass was always greener, even when there was no grass, only pavement and old warehouses and rusty fire escapes and the sound of motors gunning in the distance, down a couple of dark streets, around the corners into silence.

Shepard made it all the way to the end of the street before he pulled one of the U-ies that’d made Alenko’s breath catch the night before and headed back twice as fast. True to form and stubborn as a Red already, Alenko was still standing outside the shop. His fists were still balled up. His knuckles were still bruised, but only barely, and Shepard slowed down—although he wasn’t that guy. He wasn’t gonna stop.

‘You getting on or what, Nosebleed?’ Shepard asked.

Alenko didn’t have to be asked twice.

The extra weight of another body on the bike—that’d only slow Normandy down. But it was a challenge, too. Alenko wrapped his arms around Shepard’s waist again, too close to a sore rib, and Shepard said, ‘You know, you can hold onto the handlebars too. You can’t trust everything you see in the movies.’

‘Yeah. I know.’ Alenko shifted his grip instead, lower, just under the bruised bones. ‘I’m not holding on too tight, am I?’

His breath tickled the back of Shepard’s neck, skirting along the collar of his jacket. Shepard was gonna regret this; there was no way around it. All the sharp U-ies in the world wouldn’t help him get back on track. So who exactly was out of their depth in this equation?

It just didn’t add up.

‘You fall off, I’m not going back for you again,’ Shepard said. ‘And I’m just taking you home because I don’t trust Conrad to drive that thing, especially not with all the pop he was drinking. Guy’s a regular booze-hound.’

‘Sure, Shepard,’ Alenko replied, close to chuckling. His hair, holding perfect shape, brushed the shell of Shepard’s ear.

Shepard got out of town before he could pick up any more stragglers. One was enough already—or too much, or _way_ too much, considering.

*


	5. Chapter 5

They outraced the rain until the final block, but a sudden tail-wind that pushed them along also brought the clouds. Without thunder or lightning or any warning other than the darkening of the sky, the storm started, and less than a second later, they were all but soaked.

‘You sure know how to show a stranger a good time, Nosebleed,’ Shepard said, slowing down under the oak tree in front of the big white house with the pale blue trim that said ALENKO on the mailbox out front. It wasn’t even rusty. There wasn’t a crooked post in the fence and Shepard listened to the rumble of Normandy’s engine still purring, thinking: _Okay, Alenko. This is the part where you get off._

‘It’s pouring, Shepard,’ Alenko replied. ‘Come on inside, at least wait it out until the whole thing’s over.’

‘And leave my ride out in the front for everybody to see? Not a chance. Anyway, your neighbors might get suspicious.’

‘…And _you_ might bring down the property value.’ Alenko sighed and it was warm—but not for long enough, not more than the blink of an eye—where his breath hit Shepard’s skin. ‘Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. You know, you should be an actor, ‘cause of how good you are at memorizing lines.’

‘I’m just calling it like I see it, Alenko. People are gonna ask your folks what their baby boy’s doing with a two-wheeler and you’re not gonna be able to explain your way out of that one.’ Shepard shifted, planning on bumping Alenko out of the back with his shoulders, but instead he had to live with being close, really close, dark leather slicked and creaking with rain, Alenko’s sweater see-through from the water by now. He was drenched. Between Shepard’s back and Alenko’s chest, every time they moved, Shepard could hear a funky squelching sound that was ninety-nine percent like out of something from _The Creature From the Black Lagoon_.

‘It’s no problem, Shepard,’ Alenko said. ‘If you want, you can wheel her into the garage. Give her some cover until it stops raining, if you’re not in it for yourself.’

‘You drive a pretty hard bargain.’ Shepard shrugged but he still couldn’t shrug Alenko off. ‘I’ll wait in the garage—but only ‘cause it’s what Normandy’d want.’

‘Seriously? It’s just a house, Shepard. If you wipe your feet on the mat—’

‘I don’t wipe my feet on any mats.’

‘No reason why you can’t start now.’ Finally, easing his arms out of hold, Alenko slid down off the back of the bike. His face was wet, hair finally starting to droop, and his lips were tinged in blue. Shepard hadn’t noticed the freckles over his eyebrow before; now that he was staring straight at them, he didn’t know how he’d missed it.

But that was the thing about people. They didn’t come with roadmaps or exit signs. You had to figure them out while you were moving and they were moving, too, and sometimes they were too fast for you, but mostly you were too fast for them. Either way, you passed each other by. And as long as you weren’t expecting anything—as long as you didn’t have a destination in mind—then you didn’t have to worry about accidents.

‘I could make some hot chocolate,’ Alenko added. ‘Your lips are blue, Shepard.’

‘So’s yours.’

‘No kidding.’ Alenko’s smile was back as he wiped his mouth with his knuckles. ‘…Damn. Forgot about the bruises.’

‘Must not be too bad, then.’

‘Yeah,’ Alenko said. ‘They could always be worse, right? Hey—the longer we stand around, the wetter Normandy’s getting.’

‘Nobody ever says no to you, do they?’ Shepard asked.

‘Sure they do—all the time,’ Alenko replied.

Shepard couldn’t see it. Even he hadn’t done it—not yet.

The thought followed him into the Alenkos’ garage, past the white picket fence Alenko held open for him, through a front yard with a flowerbed around the house and a few late-blooming flowers. That must’ve been all thanks to Mrs. Doctor Nosebleed Alenko, wearing her gardening apron before she went inside to check on dinner. Shepard could see what the kitchen looked like as he passed by the window. There was a vase with three fresh flowers inside of it, one for each member of the family. The curtains were white with blue trim, just like the house.

Even the garage was neat and clean, a toolbox sitting on a shelf, an empty space where the family car must’ve usually waited for Mr. Alenko to leave for work in the morning. There was a pale patch on the floor shaped long. Shepard would’ve bet ten bucks on it being a station wagon.

Gardening tools next to the fix-it-yourself stuff. Shelves with boxes and, it looked like, stuffed animals, books, old clothes, marked DONATE on the cardboard in marker.

‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ Shepard said.

‘Come on inside,’ Alenko replied. ‘It’ll be warmer in there, you know?’

Sure it would. Shepard could see it now: settling back, putting his feet up on the coffee table, Alenko coming out wearing an apron of his own, holding two mugs of hot chocolate—the kind with little marshmallows floating around on the surface. Meanwhile, Shepard would be leaving stains on the couch.

_Bringing down the property value._

Jeez, the place wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. It had to be made out of gingerbread and spun sugar. There weren’t even any cobwebs in the garage.

Alenko rubbed the back of his neck. That one lock of hair had fallen free again, over his forehead, and Shepard brushed it up for him, back, to prove he knew what nobody else did.

Alenko wasn’t perfect. His house was close to it, but Shepard wasn’t buying the rest of the pitch.

He was a tougher sell than that. Hell, he was tougher than _all_ of this.

‘Oh.’ Alenko’s lips were soft again, cold again, his cheeks flushed again, his skin wet. The last part was new. There was always something. ‘…Thanks, Shepard.’

That was Shepard’s name, all right. Only he was the only one who ever called himself that—unless you counted Timebomb Tim, which Shepard didn’t. It was _Loco_ or _Shep_ or _Get outta here, punk_ on the good days, and a good fist to the face on the bad ones.

Alenko leaned in closer, rocking up on the balls of his toes. His eyelashes were dark, his skin pale, the trio of freckles over his right eyebrow looking like constellations. Shepard had a bunch of freckles he never paid attention to but they weren’t the same.

There weren’t two more different people in the whole wide world.

Shepard could feel Alenko breathing. That _wasn’t_ new. Whether it was on the back of his neck or against the back of his ear or rifling his hair, Shepard knew what Alenko’s breath felt like and how warm it was against the wind. Pushing back against the forces Shepard knew, the ones he understood, and frankly, they weren’t that hard to figure out.

Alenko’s lips parted. His mouth was right there. He wasn’t just kookie. _He_ was the one who was loco. If this’d been a radio western, they would’ve been calling him Krazy-town Kaidan, fastest kisser in the west.

But the thing was, he was doing it. Going for it. As much as he hated cigarette smoke, as little as he knew about the life Shepard had. He was some dumb square in a button-down sweater in his parents’ garage while they were on vacation and he was the one reaching for Shepard, cold fingertips brushing Shepard’s jaw, warm breath skirting the corner of Shepard’s mouth, pulling a quick U-ie when Alenko sucked it back in, hands totally steady. Not even a twitch. Not even a shiver—and he had to be cold, dripping on the pale spot where the station wagon usually parked.

If it’d been there, maybe Shepard would’ve pushed Alenko down on the hood and shown him what he was flirting with. Disaster, mostly. Some guys didn’t know how to brace themselves for a crash and Alenko was practically cruising for it. Cruising for a bruising, like they said.

His mouth’d come so damn close. He smelled like rain and the ice cream shoppe, of course. And the cologne he was wearing, probably his pop’s.

Shepard’s mouth twisted, too. But it was something ugly, something he didn’t recognize and couldn’t name. His breath caught in his lungs, snaring on his ribs, rattling his bones like a prisoner clinging to the bars, just wanting to bust out.

‘Jeez, Nosebleed,’ Shepard said, words gusting over Alenko’s skin for a change. Alenko turned his face toward it and Shepard had to forget about all that, the way he looked. How dumb. How eager. How downright pretty. ‘Guess you were right all along—I’m the clown here, ‘cause the joke’s on you.’

Alenko froze, finally hitting the breaks. His eyes opened, his eyelashes still flecked with beads of water from the rain.

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Shepard continued. ‘You heard me, kid. What do you think this is, anyway? You’re a free meal and some gasoline for my tank. A joy ride. I’m killing time, Alenko, and you were paying for it. That’s all.’

The words came out past the bars. Shepard didn’t know how long he’d been locking them up for, either. No matter what, this was a jailbreak. They were busting loose and Shepard was letting them get away like a crooked sheriff.

_Freedom_. That mattered more than anything. Being able to pick up and pack out whenever you wanted, not stopping for any red lights.

‘Oh,’ Alenko said again. A tire that’d been popped. Torn, burnt rubber. He was still on the balls of his toes and the less chances he had to climb, the less he’d have to fall.

Besides, a guy like Shepard would never let himself be caught dead in a place like this. The next thing he knew, Alenko’d have him in the kitchen showing him how to bake fresh cookies and cake out of a box.

Nuh-uh. No way. Not on either of their lives, which couldn’t have been more different, and it was only an accident they’d pulled up side by side in the same lane.

‘Yeah, that’s right—now you’re getting it.’ Shepard took a step back. His wet sneaker squeaked, the hole in his sock letting his heel rub raw against the sole, the laces frayed. ‘Man, you really fell for it, huh? Just cause I took you home a couple of times—like that means anything.’

‘You came back at Serrice’s,’ Alenko began. ‘That wasn’t—’

‘That wasn’t anything special,’ Shepard said. ‘I didn’t have anything better to do today. Thought maybe I could case the joint out here, see if there was anything else you’d give away. But now I’m bored and I don’t see a thing I like. Besides, you _really_ fell for the game. It’s no fun when they’re too easy.’

Alenko’s jaw hardened. With the rest of him looking like a drowned puppy, it didn’t match up.

If he wanted a thrill, he could go for a ride on a roller coaster.

Outside, the rain was still coming down hard. But Shepard had rode torn up asphalt through worse than this. Snow, sleet, ice, hail—whatever it was, a little thing like bad weather couldn’t stop him. The eye of the storm had nothing to worry about. It was everything else around the eye of the storm that got blown to pieces, picked up and carried away by the wind, or drowned.

Alenko just so happened to be right outside the eye of the storm. And he didn’t have anybody to blame but himself. He’d wanted it—or thought he wanted it—and Shepard could prove him wrong in the blink of an eye.

Neither of them blinked.

Shepard reached for Normandy’s handlebar and Alenko didn’t step out of the way. ‘You’re a real piece of work, Shepard,’ he said, his voice husky, like he’d been running track and field at school all afternoon.

Shepard’s track was the open road and his field was anywhere but here. He had Purgatory; Alenko had Serrice’s. One was a club on the wrong side of the track and the other was a _shoppe_ in the best part of town, full of cheerleaders and football players and ice cream sundaes.

Candyland, no question. And this was the end of Shepard’s gummy bear road.

‘Stay out of Gastown,’ Shepard added. ‘Stay out of the Reds’ business and we’ll stay out of yours.’

He gunned the engine. Alenko still didn’t flinch. Shepard shot out of the open garage and into the downpour until his vision blurred—but the sky was already clearing up, and by the time Shepard made it off the block it was barely a drizzle, like the whole world turned for him whenever he turned against it.

*

The Councilor was waiting for them when Shepard pulled up in front of Purgatory. All the bikes were there, parked side by side and leaning in the same direction. Shepard slid into his spot on the end next to Finch’s, who had some rust on her engine and needed an afternoon of R and R.

Purgatory was closed for the night. James was on his way out with a bag of groceries.

‘Hey, Loco. Long time no see. Thanks for trashing the place, by the way. At the rate you’re going, I’m never gonna make rent this month.’

‘Find another club, James,’ Shepard said. ‘I hear Hell’s always open. So, how pissed is he?’

‘The more a guy like that smiles, the madder he is,’ James replied. ‘Hey, you wanna come over for dinner tomorrow night? My abuela’s making her famous huevos rancheros and somehow, there’s always extra.’

‘Maybe next time,’ Shepard said.

James shrugged one shoulder, paper bag rustling. ‘Same as always, huh, Loco?’

Same as always.

Shepard pushed his hair out of his eyes and it fell back into them anyway. His t-shirt was still damp but the leather of his jacket had kept most of him dry. There was sweat around his collar and under his armpits but it was warm sweat, from driving too fast, from holding onto the bike with his thighs too hard. It wasn’t a cold sweat. He wasn’t chicken.

If Timebomb Tim didn’t tick Shepard off, then dealing with the Councilor was as easy as waving off a fly. Listen to him talk, make him think you gave a damn, that all his words meant something—why, Shepard should’ve been in politics. The more a guy chewed, the easier it was to let him feel important. And when he cleared off, all he’d wasted was your time.

The bar stools were upside-down in Purgatory on top of the bar. The jukebox was quiet. The whole thing looked like Shepard felt. Topsy-turvy. Blown around. All shook up.

The Councilor was in his booth, Finch across from him, the big empty space where Shepard was supposed to be.

‘Geez, Shep,’ Finch said, sweat on the side of his forehead. ‘You must’ve been busy laying low, huh?’

‘I’m no timebomb,’ Shepard replied, flipping his collar up. The Councilor’s eyes were on him but Shepard knew how to ride straight through worse. Some days, he saw the storm building and drove toward it. Because he wanted to. Because he could.

‘Yeah, and you’re no timepiece, either.’ Finch’s chuckle was nervous, dry, like the leaves already starting to fall. When the rain followed, it made them slick, slippery, too hard to navigate for most rubes, who didn’t have the skills. ‘You’re pretty late, you know?’

‘It’s early somewhere.’ Shepard slid in next to Finch, tucking a cigarette behind his ear. ‘Anybody getting the Councilor a drink?’

‘Already on it,’ Finch said. ‘Just ‘cause we’re delinquents doesn’t mean we don’t know a thing or two about hospitality.’

‘Or how to show your guests a good time, from what I hear.’ The Councilor cleared his throat. James had been right on target; he was smiling, thin lipped and tight. Kind of like Alenko had been when Shepard sped away. Breaking laws and breaking hearts, running red stop signs and red lights. ‘I know you’re the Reds, boys, but it wouldn’t kill you to learn a _little_ bit about democracy.’

‘Oh, we run a democratic institution in Purgatory, Councilor,’ Finch said. ‘All in favor of running the competition off the road, say aye.’

‘I need you to be quiet, Finch,’ the Councilor replied.

Finch swallowed. ‘Aye.’

Shepard’s fingers itched for a smoke. He kept them still on the table before he drummed them, once, the rhythm from the ice cream shop behind his pulse. In his throat, in his wrists, and his temple where his cigarette was waiting for him.

‘The last thing we want is a police investigation down here,’ the Councilor continued. ‘Of course, if Captain Anderson _were_ to get a warrant on Purgatory for a raid after all these years, the first necks on the chopping block would hardly be mine. Your records are dirtier than the bathrooms in this establishment—isn’t that right, boys?’

‘Always right, Councilor,’ Finch said.

Shepard blinked, easy, slow, thinking about pulling smoke into his lungs and blowing it back out again.

‘What about you, Shepard?’ Councilor asked. ‘I’m sure you remember better than I do why a run-in with the authorities would mean trouble not even you could give the slip?’

‘What can I say?’ Shepard shrugged and blinked again, keeping his eyes on the polished pin on the Councilor’s chest. ‘I’ve taken a lot of five-fingered discounts in my time, sure.’

‘Of course, you know what I mean.’ The Councilor was smiling again. Shepard could tell from the way his voice snaked past his teeth. ‘We have our reasons to protect this place. Which means we shouldn’t be the ones to tear it down, should we?’

‘Timebomb Tim’s the problem,’ Finch said. Shepard thought about kicking him under the table, then figured there was no use in doing it now. Some people never learned. ‘He waltzed in here like he _owned_ the place, Councilor. This is our turf, like you said. We’ve gotta show Cerberus who really runs this town. …Without using any names, of course.’

‘There are other ways to deal with Cerberus. Try not to think too much, Finch,’ the Councilor replied. ‘It’s not good for your constitution. Oh, and Shepard?’

Shepard looked up.

‘I’ve got a job coming along the pipes you’re not going to want to let get away from you.’ The Councilor reached forward, taking the cigarette out from behind Shepard’s ear. ‘Got a light?’

‘I do, Councilor. Right here.’ Finch almost dropped his lighter getting it out of his jacket pocket and almost broke a rib leaning across the table to get to the Councilor’s cigarette. He blew an uneven ring of smoke, then sighed.

‘Unfiltered, Shepard? Really?’ The Councilor stood. ‘Who are you trying to impress, exactly?’

‘My old man,’ Shepard said.

He’d let the Councilor decide if he was making a pop up out of thin air, or talking about a pack-leader who liked to bust into everybody’s business now and then just to show them who was boss.

Shepard watched the smoke trail out of the room as the Councilor left, sliding into his black sedan, chauffeur driving him away.

‘Damn, that was close.’ Finch wiped the sweat off his forehead, jiggling in place. ‘Wonder how he does it, Shep. Give you the heebie-jeebies just by smiling at you.’

‘You give me the heebie jeebies when you smile, Finch,’ Shepard said.

Finch snorted. ‘Big talk, coming from you. You let him take your smoke and everything.’

‘I’ve got another one. Pick your battles, Finch.’ Shepard tugged the pack out of his pocket. Only one cigarette left. He tapped it out and waited for Finch to catch on, which took too long as always, and light it for him. Unfiltered. Raw. Shepard honestly hated the taste. But that was the point—burning his lungs, making his stomach turn, his throat tighten up, his chest, his ribs.

Finch flipped his lighter shut with a snap.

‘Let’s listen to something, Shep. They say silence is golden, right—so how come we’re not all millionaires?’

‘’Cause you never shut your mouth, that’s why.’ Shepard fished around for his unlucky nickel and found it, stuck in the torn lining of his jacket pocket. James’s abuela could’ve sewn that up for him, no problem. But the tear was there because of Shepard and it’d stay there until Shepard could fix it, which’d be never. He could just see himself now, darning up a hole with a needle and thread—borrowed from Mrs. Alenko’s sewing kit, even.

Alenko was the problem. Alenko was when all the bad luck had started. Shepard popped the nickel into the jukebox and picked a song with his eyes shut and one hand behind his back. Elvis came on. Shepard waited until the song ended to kick the jukebox in its sweet spot and take his nickel back, tucking it into the pocket on the other side this time, the one that wasn’t torn up and hungry.

*


	6. Chapter 6

Shepard couldn’t sleep.

He watched the sun come up from the windowsill, a new pack of cigarettes—also five fingers off—empty by the time dawn hit Gastown. He’d dropped the butts onto the fire escape. There was a bona-fide collection down there now.

The Councilor knew stuff. He was a sharp guy. Maybe he didn’t drive a bike of his own, but he knew how to outflank you in a race because he was smart enough to keep that race on his own terms, his own turf.

And he knew about what’d happened at the Akuze Correctional Facility For Boys—something Shepard never dreamed about, because when he’d been thinking about it, he didn’t sleep a wink. Sometimes he even forgot to swallow, and it was only habit that kept him breathing.  

Trust him to choose to bust out of the place the one night a fire started in the kitchen. Some kind of gas leak, just as likely it was an accident as it could’ve been foul play. Anyway, the whole thing blew fifteen minutes after midnight, five minutes after Shepard had thrown his stuff over the barbed wire fence. And they’d never found the sole survivor, either; Shepard read it in the paper three days later, that the suspect was one of the boys on the roster who hadn’t been found after the incident.

As much as he’d wanted to burn the place down—a whole bunch of places, Akuze included—he hadn’t done it.

The Councilor had his papers. Shepard had his reasons. Finch had no clue. And, somewhere out there, a square named Kaidan Alenko had the biggest, saddest eyes Shepard had ever seen in his life.

But freedom was leaving a place behind. It was not being a part of it when it burned down. Some days, Shepard opened his eyes and wondered if Purgatory had gone up in flames yet—but it stayed the same: one ugly sign, one broken window, one messed-up jukebox, one red spackle countertop and five private booths.

Shepard lit his last cigarette. On the rusted fire escape below, the collection he’d taken up looked like a burial ground full of scorched bones or the remains of a white picket fence in miniature. Shepard flicked ash from the butt of his latest and closed his eyes.

After that, he went through the motions. Everything was peachy-keen, simple as apple pie, not anywhere close to as complicated as an ice cream sundae. Shepard kept Finch in line and Finch put the pressure on the rich kids who owed them for the _red sand_ , a special blend the Councilor had delivered to Purgatory while James was eating huevos rancheros with his abuela.

He won a drag race in a hotwired car against a couple of Cerberus punks who thought they were fast enough to try him on for size.

They’d thought wrong.

And he spent a few days in the junkyard working on spare parts, breaking down an old hunk of junk and putting it back together just for the hell of it.

Then, on Saturday night, Conrad Verner’s car pulled into the lot behind purgatory, blocking Shepard’s view of the parked bikes.

Shepard wiped the motor oil off his forehead, which only succeeded in wiping more motor oil onto his forearm. His fingers were black. He hadn’t smoked in an hour, maybe more. He recognized the sound of the red convertible’s engine, the way it spat and clanged before it answered the breaks. He even recognized the silence, and Conrad’s laugh.

Shepard rested his palm against one of the wire diamonds in the fence, digging into his fingers as he leaned his weight against it. The shadow of Conrad Verner slid out of the car and Finch circled him, once, like one of those buzzards in a western, before they started arguing over the price of the goods.

Conrad would be the type to try and bargain with the best. Finch might’ve been a lot of things, but once he’d sunk his teeth into something, he didn’t let go for any reason. He wasn’t budging on the price, and Conrad had probably been thick enough to bring all his money with him in a fat wallet he kept in the glove compartment.

Sure enough, Conrad leaned into the front over the shotgun-side window and tugged something out. There was nobody else in the car with him.

The taste Alenko’d had of the place didn’t suit him the same way hot fudge and strawberry syrup did. The chain link fence tinkled, rattling on its hinges, and Shepard pulled away, heading back to his car shop.

_Car Shoppe_.

Shepard snorted. The job was coming along nicely; all he had to do was assemble a bunch of stolen parts and put a car together for the Councilor to sell off, good as new. He settled down under the hood, flashlight held between his chin and his shoulder. It wasn’t easy to breathe like that, but at least he could see.

Alenko hadn’t come. That meant he wouldn’t be caught up in whatever happened in Purgatory—just one step away from hell, Finch liked to say. Alenko and his white sneakers could stay clean as a whistle, enjoying meatloaf on Sunday nights.

The thump that followed wasn’t the engine falling out—again; the damn thing was insisting on being tricky. It came from across the lot and it was familiar, as much as a thump could be. Shepard straightened and the flashlight clattered to the ground, skidding in a half circle, swinging a wide yellow beam from Shepard’s busted runners to clean, white hightops.

‘Need a light?’ Alenko asked.

So, he’d hitched a ride with Conrad after all. Shepard licked his bottom lip and tasted gasoline, motor oil, grease, a streak of tobacco—all kinds of bitter things. That was the closest to a hot fudge sundae they got in purgatory; a bottle of cheap beer was their version of a root beer float. No ice cream in hell, Shepard figured. It was too busy melting from the heat.

His hair stuck to the motor oil on his forehead. He crossed his arms and Alenko was the one to bend into the flashlight’s beam, reaching down to pick it up. Shepard saw his hair, big on the top as always, and the sweater, and the three freckles—and, of course, the soft brown eyes. The same color as root beer.

‘Sometimes it’s like you’ve got as many hands as a jellyfish has tentacles,’ Alenko added. ‘Holding your own light steady and fixing this hot rod… You’re really something, Shepard.’

‘Your date ditched you for the Friday night social, huh, Nosebleed?’ Shepard stood his ground as the flashlight swung back around to him, catching him in the chest, then traveling up to his neck, stopping right before getting in his eyes. He still had to fight off the urge to squint.

‘If Conrad came by himself, he’d only get into trouble. Are those your wheels?’

‘Got ‘em with the five fingered discount.’ Shepard held up one hand, wiggling the fingers in question. ‘You know the one. But I’m charitable. I’m passing on the wealth to somebody else. I only drive two-wheelers, anyway.’

‘I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.’ The flashlight beam bobbed once. ‘I know a thing or two about engines, though, and you’ve got the carburetor in all wrong. No wonder the engine’s loose.’

‘A doctor _and_ a teacher?’ Shepard asked. ‘Geez, Nosebleed—where do you find the time?’

Alenko tucked the flashlight under one arm to roll up the opposite sleeve, then switched sides to do the same with the other one. He slicked his hair back even though it didn’t need it and crossed the distance between them like it was that easy, or like he wasn’t thinking about the puddle of dark motor oil he’d just splattered all over his nice, clean shoes.

‘Hold this for a second, would you?’ Alenko gave Shepard his flashlight back. ‘Try to keep it steady, too. I’m just gonna fix a few things.’

Great, Shepard thought. A square and a nerd. If he messed up the car, it was coming out of his pocket. Alenko had plenty to spare, after all.

The light fell over Alenko’s hands. He slipped them between two pipes and when they came back up again, they were as dirty as his shoes. It wasn’t blood, but when Shepard blinked, it almost looked like he’d gone on a car-killing spree.

‘Okay,’ Alenko said. ‘That should be all you need to get her running again. You wanna do the honors, or should I?’

‘You learned that in the boy scouts, right?’

‘Yeah, actually; I did.’ Shepard didn’t have to swing the flashlight up to his face to know he was grinning, all twisted at the corner, so damn familiar in the nighttime. ‘And that’s not the only thing I learned.’

‘Really? Because I’m wondering if they taught you how to make it through the wilds of Purgatory and surrounding junkyards.’

‘They didn’t teach me how to make it through Shepard, that’s for sure,’ Alenko said. He sounded proud of himself. It wouldn’t last, just like Sundays and sundaes.

‘Why’d you come here, Alenko?’ Shepard asked. ‘You like getting hurt?’

The pause might’ve been Alenko’s grin slipping; Shepard would never know. He couldn’t light up Alenko’s flushed face without blinding him, so all the shots he was taking were just stabs in the dark. Chances were one or more of them would hit home; Shepard already knew Alenko’s weak spots. Most of him was a bull’s eye, especially in Gastown. He could’ve been walking around with a target sign, a _pick on me_ stuck to his back, and he wouldn’t have been more obvious.

‘…You must think I’m a real glutton for punishment, huh?’ Alenko said finally. ‘That I don’t know when to quit for my own good.’

‘That’s about right.’

‘Well, you’re about wrong.’ Alenko’s sleeves had been rolled up past his elbows. They weren’t dirty, but there was a streak of motor oil across his stomach, between two neat buttons on his cardigan, from leaning over the hood. ‘And you can’t gun your engines and scare me off _that_ easy.’

‘I’m more bite than bark,’ Shepard said.

‘No kidding,’ Alenko replied. His voice had a dry humor that could’ve used some motor oil to grease it up a bit. Shepard realized it was a joke, _sarcasm_ , and that Alenko didn’t believe him for a second.

It wasn’t relief—but something hit Shepard in the gut all the same. High impact.

‘Scram, Nosebleed.’

‘You think you’re doing me some kind of favor by acting like a jerk?’ Alenko gestured to the mess under the hood of Shepard’s latest project. ‘Well, you’re not fooling me, Shepard.’

‘I’m not fooling,’ Shepard said.

‘I don’t think you know how not to, that’s all.’

‘You don’t think. You can stop right there and it’ll be closer to the truth.’

‘You put up all these fences, then tell everybody there’s no way in. But it turns out…’ Alenko reached out across the distance between them with one greasy, soft hand, touching the side of Shepard’s t-shirt. It’d been white once, but not for a long time. Without his jacket, Shepard felt naked. A bruise on his hip was hidden under cotton but somehow, Alenko found it anyway. ‘…it turns out anybody can climb ‘em. Well—maybe not anybody. Just more people than you’d think.’

‘You really oughta get out of here, Nosebleed,’ Shepard said.

Alenko ran his thumb in a slow half-moon over the bruise. ‘What happened here?’ he asked.

They were on Shepard’s turf. In Shepard’s junkyard. There was a car with a hood nearby and everything, just like there hadn’t been in Alenko’s garage. The hood wasn’t down, though, and Shepard slammed it shut, the sound echoing through his skin. Alenko’s fingers tightened their hold and the pain almost cleared Shepard’s head.

Almost.

He grabbed Alenko’s hip instead. They came together like a crash in the middle of a race, one of them spinning off course into the other one, two lines that should’ve been running parallel suddenly snaring up like the twists of metal in a chain link fence. Alenko gasped; Shepard felt it. He dropped the flashlight and it skittered under the body of the car. Shepard had to find Alenko’s face in the darkness, a sudden sweep of neon light from the sign over purgatory shifting from blue to red.

There he was. Mouth open, ready and waiting. He thought he knew. He could fix a car but he wouldn’t be able to open himself up and unscramble what’d been broken once Shepard was through with him.

Shepard only knew how to take care of one thing, and that was Normandy. Everything else he left on the sidewalk, in a trail of exhaust, behind him instead of on the horizon.

‘You chicken?’ Alenko asked. His breath was just like a shiver.

‘You really are kookie,’ Shepard replied, and kissed him.

They were both kookie, maybe. Too kookie for their own good. Alenko’s chest swelled and he wrapped his arms around Shepard’s neck just like in the movies, his hands in Shepard’s hair before his whole body remembered they were covered in motor oil, slick and stinking.

His mouth opened like he was going to say _I’m sorry_ but instead his tongue brushed over Shepard’s teeth and Shepard’s lips parted like he couldn’t do anything but let Alenko in.

Damn, the square sure knew how to kiss. All soft lips and quick tongue and his teeth scraping Shepard’s skin, tugging when they needed to tug, easing up when they needed to ease up. He smelled like the motor oil and the metal, sure, but under that he smelled like the usual cologne, something Shepard couldn’t name or afford—but he could recognize it anyway.

It filled Shepard’s mouth and lungs. His ears were red, his hair dirtier than usual. Alenko swiped a taste and pulled back and said something about cigarettes, and shook his head, and Shepard gripped him by the hips and crushed him close, then pushed him back against the hood of the car.

  
  
by [Crowthis](http://crowthis.tumblr.com)  


The whole damn thing rattled. It was missing tires so far; all it had were shaky hubcaps. It might not even hold, busted as it was. _I know how you feel_ , Shepard thought, but he didn’t know where the thought came from, and he kicked it out, over the high fence, knee knocking the loose bumper as he bore down, closer, into Alenko’s body.

The car was hard. Alenko was soft—except for one place, where he was hard, too. His sweater tickled and it was all greasy now because of Shepard’s roving hands. This was the second sweater of his that Shepard had ruined, the second one that couldn’t even be stuffed in the DONATIONS box in his garage. Shepard even pulled off a button before the snap of the thread made him freeze in place, breathing hard, listening to metal scrape the blacktop.

The front left hubcap’d fallen off. And he’d just gotten it to stay on, too.

Things fell apart. Sweaters; hot rods; even motorcycles.

‘You kissed me,’ Alenko said, hoarse and rasping and husky. He sure didn’t have a voice that matched how he looked.

‘ _No kidding_ ,’ Shepard replied, just as hoarse, but rougher, meaner, his mouth twisting. He didn’t know where it came from either: a joke that turned to ash, unfiltered like his smokes.

‘Hey.’ Alenko touched his chest, blackened fingers spread over the center. His thumb barely grazed Shepard’s heartbeat.

‘Hey yourself.’ Shepard swallowed. Somehow, even coming from below, the weight of Alenko’s touch was heavy on his lungs. ‘Hey’s for horses.’

‘Okay, okay. I’m still not buying the fence thing, for the record.’ Alenko leaned up, bumping their foreheads together—not on purpose—and their noses—maybe on purpose—before he found Shepard’s mouth, kissing him again. Slow and deep and thoughtful and all around Doctor Nosebleed Alenko, taking his time, thinking he had all the time in the world. Guys like him had no hustle. They didn’t think they needed to hurry. They could be slow and deep and thoughtful all they wanted because at the end of the day, it didn’t matter to them the way it mattered to everybody else. Everything they needed was waiting for them. They had the four-poster bed, the white picket fence, the swing hanging off an old oak tree in the backyard, and fresh flowers with home-made breakfast every morning.

Every time Shepard closed his eyes, he saw it on the backs of his eyelids. The curtains with the blue trim; the toolbox in the garage. The car rattled again. Alenko was holding Shepard’s face in both hands, one on either side, pressing with the tips of his fingers, scraping with blunt nails. Nobody’d ever held Shepard’s face while they were kissing before.

And, just like that, Shepard forgot where to put his hands or how to move them, how to touch somebody and be certain they liked it.

‘You’re pretty kookie yourself,’ Alenko said, between their mouths, along Shepard’s chin.

‘Get outta here,’ Shepard repeated.

Some days, there was no difference between him and a busted jukebox. Playing the same line over and over, needle stuck on the vinyl.

But Shepard had been better at telling Alenko off the last time. He’d known where to hit and how low, instead of letting dirty fingers raking over his scalp make a difference between common sense and flying off the side of the road.

He wasn’t afraid of crashing. He repeated it, over and over, with the thudding of his heartbeat. That was the only trick in the book anybody needed to stick to. Don’t be chicken. If you weren’t afraid of going up in flames then you weren’t afraid of anything. You could go as fast as you wanted, as far as you wanted, and there wasn’t a single thing in the world that could get in your way.

No road signs. No road blocks. No lights; no speed limits; nobody.

Live and die by it, like living and dying were one and the same thing.

Shepard bunched his fists in the front of Alenko’s sweater. There wasn’t any point in being careful with the buttons now but he realized he was doing it anyway, smoothing over the fabric, succeeding at nothing but making it dirtier than ever, spreading the stains. That was him all right. It was exactly who he was and exactly who Alenko didn’t know how to handle, obviously, since…

Since Alenko had him right where he’d wanted him. Shepard’s lips parted and Alenko got his tongue between them just like before, dizzy as a high-speed chase, the fastest challenge Shepard had since the last time he went toe to toe with the Assassin—Timebomb Tim looking on and smoking one tired cigarette, barely halfway down to the stub by the time the race was finished. _That_ was how fast it’d been.

How fast Shepard usually was.

How fast he needed to be.

His hands moved higher, over Alenko’s shoulders, over his throat and his jaw and, finally, through his hair. Shepard was going to mess that up, too, and that was who Alenko was—one perfect pompadour, never out of place.

Even if Finch used motor oil instead of pomade when their income was tight.

If Shepard ended up helping instead of hurting, how was Alenko ever supposed to learn his lesson?

Then again, Alenkio was the professor, not Shepard. Delinquents didn’t teach—most people assumed they couldn’t even learn.

Whatever it was that was happening, fuel finally catching the ignition, carburetor twisted into the right place, it all stopped when Shepard’s thumb hit the scar—buried in Alenko’s thick hair, only Shepard still knew a scar when he felt one. Intimately, even.

Alenko said something, barely words. _Oh_ , it sounded like, and Shepard pulled back, his finger still fitting against the scar. ‘That’s just…’

‘Let me guess: it’s a long story.’

‘As long as this isn’t a short one,’ Alenko replied.

‘We already hit the end, Nosebleed.’

‘Yeah?’ Alenko couldn’t catch his breath, but it suited him somehow. Better than the motor oil, anyway. ‘Of a chapter, maybe. But there’s always sequels. Stay tuned next time for…’

‘For the big crash,’ Shepard suggested.

‘That’d really be something on the silver screen, wouldn’t it?’ Alenko licked his lips, his mouth close enough to Shepard’s still that Shepard could feel the tip of his tongue on his own lips, all the way to the corner. Some kids were naturals, plain and simple. What dollies had to work at for years to perfect, a few lucky bastards were born with.

And it wasn’t fair. Nothing in Shepard’s world was, but especially not anything in Gastown.

‘I just…didn’t want it to end without doing that, anyway,’ Alenko added, all bright sunshine and hope in the shadows. He was less like a bad penny and more like a lost silver dollar. Shiny in a place where he couldn’t afford to be. Not on a single dollar, anyway.

Shepard needed to stop touching him, only he didn’t.

‘You’ve been planning this all along, huh?’ Shepard asked.

‘Not all along.’ Alenko cleared his throat. His eyelashes tickled. His hair was still as perfect as ever—but it wouldn’t last. ‘I just like you, that’s all.’

_That’s all_.

Shepard snorted. Alenko shivered. The shape of the scar was a mystery. Whenever Shepard blinked it was part blacktop and part front porch. Something rough where everything else was smooth and soft.

‘You need to scram, Alenko,’ Shepard said.

He kissed Alenko after that until Alenko’s stiff posture eased up and he pulled Shepard down over him, the hood of the hot rod still rattling. Something clanged around underneath, probably the carburetor slipping out of place because it belong out of place. Some wrecks were totaled and there was nothing you could do for them, no amount of hard work that’d see the thing running like it used to. And sometimes the difference between a real wreck and just giving up on something good was a line so fine it couldn’t be seen by the naked eye, no matter how big and how brown they were.

Something else clanged nearby—not a part of the car. This time, Shepard stiffened, grabbing Alenko by the front of his shirt, putting a greasy finger tip his lips. Alenko nodded against it.

‘Damn it, Shep, did you decide to catch some Z’s out here tonight?’ Finch’s voice echoed between the gutted car frames. ‘You’re getting to be a real slacker in your old age—you know that?’

Finch always did have a sense of timing so bad it couldn’t be faked. It had to be natural. Shepard held his finger to Kaidan’s lips for a second longer, then pulled free.

Something kept pulling him back. He didn’t let it; he was used to pushing when everybody else was tugging and tugging when everybody else was pushing, but this one was like a hook in his gut, dragging against him from the inside instead of slamming him around from the outside.

Alenko sure had him scrambled like James’s abuela’s famous huevos rancheros.

‘Look in a mirror lately?’ Shepard asked, grabbing one of the stained towels thrown over a hubcap nearby to wipe the motor oil off his face. ‘If you’re looking for the definition of slacker, all you’ve gotta do is look in the mirror, Finch.’

‘Yeah, yeah, you’re a regular one-man act, Shep.’ Finch came into view a second later, ducking around a stack of impounded vehicles, just the emptied out shells gutted and rusting in the rain. ‘It sure looks like Halloween or something back here. _The Haunted Junkyard_. …Thought I heard you talking.’

Shepard flicked the towel at Finch’s face and, true to his name, he flinched.

‘Working on the thing,’ Shepard said.

Finch blinked.

‘…The thing for the Councilor,’ Shepard added.

Alenko was behind the car somewhere, listening to everything. And Finch’s sense for timing was matched only by the one he had for sticking around when he wasn’t wanted, never showing up when he was. Even if the latter was less frequent than the former. Shepard didn’t need anybody; he could handle things on his own from a lifetime of getting by without reliable backup.

‘Oh, yeah—the thing.’ Finch patted the hood, then wiped the grease off on the front of his jeans. ‘We were supposed to be working on that together, huh?’

Shepard didn’t say anything.

‘Jeez, Shep—who pissed in your curly fries?’ Finch leaned back against the bumper. ‘You been all right lately? Some of the guys and I’ve been taking bets on whether or not _you_ found yourself a lovebird. Somebody to neck with at the drive-in. Trying to imagine the kind of dumb dolly that’d fall for a piece of work like _you_ , though…’

‘You need to find yourself a dolly of your own, Finch,’ Shepard said. ‘You’ve got too much time on your hands and one hell of a sense of imagination.’

‘Part of my charm,’ Finch replied. Shepard snorted. Finch was grinning. ‘You know me, Shep. I’ve gotta beat ‘em off with sticks. There’s a line all the way out of Purgatory and through Gastown and I’m still, uh, _auditioning_.’

‘Get the hell outta here, Finch, or I’m gonna start thinking you’re auditioning _me_.’

Finch punched him in the side of his arm on his way past; Shepard punched him back, and snapped him again with the towel, and caught Finch’s retaliation with his forearm, leaving Finch shaking out his knuckles and his head. ‘Okay, so you’re still on your game, _Loco_ ,’ Finch said. ‘You made your point. Councilor’s been breathing pretty hard on us to expand territory and pick up our revenue, you know? And if _your_ heart’s not in it, then… Ah, screw it. Keep making love to your hunks of junk, Shep.’

‘That’s the plan, Finch.’

‘And even if it wasn’t, I’m not the hot rodder who can stop you, huh?’ Finch waved over the shoulder of his leather jacket, which’d always been too big for him.

Time moved slowly. Shepard waited for the second round but it didn’t come and, finally, Alenko’s head popped up from behind the trunk of the car like a daisy in spring, or one of those moles in the Whack-a-Mole down at the arcade.

‘Who’s this Councilor?’ he asked. ‘He’s not a real councilor, is he?’

‘Don’t ask questions you don’t wanna know the answers to, Nosebleed.’

‘You know, you _can_ call me Kaidan. Considering we’ve kissed and all. …More than once.’

‘Those are the rules, huh?’ Shepard wiped the back of his neck again. Nothing he did made him any cleaner, and realizing he kept trying anyway didn’t sit right with him. Like drinking bad milk or eating a rotten egg. ‘Well, I don’t _follow_ the rules, Nosebleed.’

‘…No kidding.’ Alenko sounded proud of himself again, in his dirty sweater, with that loose curl of hair falling over his forehead. ‘You’re not gonna tell me about any of that, are you?’

‘Nope.’

‘Or introduce me to your friend Finch, either.’

‘Not a chance.’

‘You still wanna kiss me?’

Shepard paused. ‘…Don’t flatter yourself.’

‘’Cause…I still wanna kiss you,’ Alenko said.

It hit Shepard hard in the gut, no leather to protect him. Then, it twisted, that hook that’d sunk into him deep, and Shepard knew _he_ was the one who was sunk now. No point in asking Alenko how good he was at swimming, either.

Shepard didn’t believe in turning the other cheek but he sure believed in turning his back on somebody when they were talking crazy, especially when they were talking crazy _and_ stupid. He grabbed his jacket and shrugged into the sleeves, flipping up the collar, the familiar leather smell pressed against his mouth. At least that didn’t stink of somebody else’s cologne, although some of it had lingered for a couple of days after Shepard left the Alenko garage.

‘I wanna go for a ride,’ Shepard said. ‘What’re the chances of your buddy Conrad getting you into hot water if I leave you here?’

‘Pretty high,’ Alenko replied. ‘He’s that kind of buddy.’

‘Yeah. I know the type.’ Finch was that kind of buddy, too. And everybody else in the Reds, only they did it on purpose, not by accident. Shepard couldn’t decide which one was more dangerous. Neither of them was exactly predictable. ‘So hop on.’

When Normandy purred to life, a slow, steady hum that built from a whisper to a roar, it wasn’t sudden. It wasn’t a gasp and a jerk but a rumble, and Alenko’s thighs squeezed Shepard’s hips from behind.

Yeah, Shepard thought. He was sunk.

*


	7. Chapter 7

They made it all the way to the drive-in—the movie was already over, not even the lovebirds still necking in the backseats anymore—before Shepard cut the engine, knocking the kickstand down with his toes. The darkened movie screen was just a shimmer across the sky. Shepard got off the bike and shoved his hands in his pockets and Alenko stood next to him, quiet, not asking any of the dumb questions Shepard was expecting from him.

_Show’s over, you know. So why’re we here?_

_You wanna stare at nothing, why don’t you just stay put in Gastown?_

_Wonder what they call this movie… If I were you, I’d ask for my money back._

It’d turned pretty cold without any sunlight. The stars could be as bright as they wanted but they were so far away they didn’t warm anything on earth up.

‘You like watching the stars?’ Alenko asked.

‘Nope,’ Shepard said.

‘…So you like watching movies that aren’t playing anymore?’

‘Sure.’

‘Okay.’ Alenko didn’t push the issue, although his shoulder bumped Shepard’s, a soft sweater on hard, cracked leather.

‘You’re not gonna ask why we’re here?’

‘You’re not gonna answer me if you don’t want to.’

Shepard shook his head. Alenko sure knew how to be a comedian. Shepard fished around in his pocket for a cigarette, already half finished, and lit up without looking at Alenko’s face in the sudden flare from his lighter.

‘And if you think this is the worst habit I have,’ Shepard began.

‘I wasn’t thinking that.’

‘Yeah, no kidding. I bet you weren’t thinking at all.’

‘Sure I was.’ Alenko cleared his throat. ‘But I was thinking about you, mostly. And that car you’re working on, and why you’re working on it. How long you’ve known Finch. What your favorite color is, too. Which stars I can see from here. They’re pretty bright tonight. …I guess I was thinking a lot of things.’

The problem was how easy he could say it. The stuff Shepard thought, whatever it was, didn’t have words that came out so easy, and even if they had, he wouldn’t have said ‘em. Some things you had to keep to yourself, forever, or they’d fall out like a busted carburetor and then you’d never get the engine to run the way it used to.

‘I’m thinking about cars,’ Shepard said.

‘That’s neat, Shepard.’

‘Yeah. Neat. And after I finish thinking about cars I’ll head down to the five and dime and meet Jimmy and Sally and Bobby and Tommy for one heck of a fun time—’

Shepard could’ve kept going—he’d seen enough movies, paying for them or not, and listened to enough radio shows, to know how the rest of the story went. Only Alenko grabbed the corner of his jacket, fingers wrapped around the nearest pocket, looped inside to pull Shepard to him.

They kissed. Shepard’s cigarette burnt down so close to his fingers that he had to drop it, only half of the half smoked in the end.

‘You’re really something, Nosebleed,’ Shepard told him after, forehead to forehead.

‘Thanks, Shepard,’ Alenko replied. ‘So are you.’

It hadn’t been a compliment. Maybe Alenko’s wasn’t one, either. Shepard shook his head, hair tickling Alenko’s skin. Now, he wasn’t thinking about cars anymore. He was thinking about the way Alenko’s mouth twisted when he was frowning and when he was smiling. Like it was practically the same thing.

But it wasn’t, obviously. Shepard didn’t have to go to school five days a week to know the definitions. And there was plenty a guy couldn’t learn in the classroom off a blackboard, either. Like how to tell when somebody was messing with you, when they were bluffing, when they were too cocky, when they were just cocky enough—and when they were getting cold inside of a dirty sweater that somebody’d seen fit to ruin just by touching it.

Shepard’s hands were on the small of Alenko’s back again; it must’ve happened while they were kissing. Instinct, being a good driver, crashing just the right number of times to feel like not-crashing actually meant something…

Shepard let go.

And Finch was always telling him he was no good at that.

‘Let’s get outta here, Nosebleed.’

‘Make like a banana and split, huh?’ Alenko asked.

‘Make like _huevos rancheros_ and scram,’ Shepard agreed.

‘Sometimes I don’t know what you’re talking about, Shepard,’ Alenko said, climbing up onto the bike at Shepard’s back. His chin fit in snug on Shepard’s shoulder.

‘Guess I’m just a mystery,’ Shepard replied.

He drove. Not fast, not furious, but not the slow kind of driving Alenko was used to, even hanging around Ash and Conrad—a dolly who didn’t know how to use the brakes and a flat-top who didn’t know how to ease up on the gas. That was the life Alenko was living. Must’ve been boring, but at least the sweaters were clean and smelled like fresh laundry, sunlight, hanging out to dry on a clothesline and everything.

They didn’t talk. There wasn’t anything to say. And Alenko’s cold nose warmed up at the back of Shepard’s neck, making him think all along the empty roads about the scar buried in Alenko’s hair.

Alenko knew how to fix engines and where carburetors went. He never jumped at sudden noises. He was a square, plain and simple, and it had to take him a half an hour at least with a comb and his pop’s pomade to get his hair to stay put like that. But there was something more to him, something Shepard couldn’t figure out. He was coming around to believing that no matter how many times Shepard flipped him, Alenko was always going to land on heads.

Shepard was the kind of guy who always landed on tails.

They pulled past Tommy Tummy Tingler’s All-Night Drive-Through and the smell of burger grease overtook the smell of motor oil for a change. Shepard’s stomach rumbled like a motorcycle. Alenko’s did the same. They didn’t stop; all Shepard had was a nickel in his pocket and he owed Tommy some cash from the last time, anyway.

They were going nowhere. That was the only place Shepard knew directions to in the first place. But Alenko didn’t ask where they were headed or if they were there yet. He stuck his hands in Shepard’s front pockets, holding his jacket around Shepard’s ribcage, and it felt good even with the bruises.

But it came to an end. Everything did, even the free rides you won from knocking over the right number of pins at the carnival.

Shepard could just see them now: riding the roller coaster, the cyclone, the teeter-whirls, the teacups, Shepard winning Alenko a big stuffed animal because he knew how the system worked, how it cheated, and how to cheat back. They’d get ice cream cones and cotton candy and eat until their teeth hurt, with kisses too damn sweet after.

Shepard needed another smoke. He was going around in circles and taking Alenko with him all the way to nowhere at all.

‘Ride’s over,’ Shepard said. ‘Time to get off.’

They were at the top of Alenko’s block. The oak tree in the front, the streetlights, the darkened windows like darkened movie screens—everything there, just like Shepard remembered it. Just like he saw when he closed his eyes or even when he blinked. Those split seconds that changed everything, the same as a toss of a coin.

‘I had a good time tonight, Shepard.’ Alenko sounded like he was thanking somebody for a date, not a confusing tour of places that weren’t open, places they didn’t go into even if they were.

‘A good time riding backseat covered in motor oil?’ Shepard asked. ‘You remember the part where we didn’t see the movie, right?’

‘Yeah. I remember that part. And I’m planning on remembering it for a long time.’ Alenko still hadn’t let go of Shepard’s waist, holding him tight against his chest. It was warm and it didn’t hurt as much as it could’ve, or should’ve, considering the bruises. Shepard half expected he wouldn’t be able to breathe, only he sucked a breath in just fine, easier than when he was pulling on a smoke. ‘You showed me plenty.’

‘You ruined another sweater.’ Shepard swiped his bottom lip with his tongue with a vengeance, not soft and curious the way Alenko’d licked him. ‘…That was a joint effort, seeing as how you used my motor-oil.’

‘You’re more than just a ride, Shepard,’ Alenko said.

‘That’s where you’re wrong, Nosebleed.’

‘Kaidan.’

‘ _Nosebleed_.’

‘Alenko, then. …Shepard.’

Shepard craned around—one of the golden rules, not looking behind you, and here he was breaking it. Not because it’d turn him to stone or a pile of salt or whatever it was, but because he’d see stuff he didn’t need to see, stuff that’d only slow him down. Maybe Alenko was loaded, but Shepard couldn’t afford to pay that kind of price.

And there Alenko was, gentle mouth and shadowy nose and big, big eyes, dark eyebrows and a streak of motor oil on his cheek for good measure. It might’ve rubbed off from Shepard’s hands, getting him dirty all over, tightening around the handlebars when he thought about it.

He wanted to do it again. It was the only thing he could do when he was touching Alenko. Those were the kinds of marks he left, the so-called gifts he gave. Nothing you could unwrap in front of mom and pop, that was for sure. And it didn’t come with a cherry on top, either.

Then, Alenko kissed Shepard’s jaw, right under the ear. He sucked in this long breath Shepard could feel pulling over his skin, the way his stubble was prickling Alenko’s lips.

‘We should do this again sometime,’ Alenko said. Shepard felt the words more than he heard them, pushed like a secret in the shadow under his cheek. ‘You could always wheel that hunk of junk around here and we could work on it in the garage, if you wanted.’

‘Wheel hot property through your folks’ backyard?’ Shepard swallowed instead of snorted. ‘Something tells me you don’t want that.’

‘Yeah, but leaving it unfinished…’

‘What do you do on Saturday nights, Alenko?’ Shepard asked.

Alenko paused, just long enough to get over the surprise of the question. ‘Nothing too exciting. Sometimes Ash and Jenkins and Conrad and I go out to the movies, I guess. Or we go to one of the dances, or Serrice’s if we’re in the mood. Now, I know what you’re thinking, that I’m the biggest square you’ve ever seen, and maybe… Maybe you’re right about that. But I know how to fix a car, Shepard. That engine needed some serious help. I did what I could, but there’s more I could do.’

Alenko was right about that—about all of it. The biggest square part and the other stuff, the better stuff, that Shepard wasn’t gonna think about on account of how it might come leaking out like gasoline from a faulty tailpipe.

‘Sounds like a real blast,’ Shepard said. ‘Those Saturday nights. Don’t get too wild; you never know where being reckless like that’ll get you.’

‘What about you, Shepard?’ Alenko asked. ‘What do _you_ do on Saturday nights?’

‘I’d tell you, but then I’d have to find a way to keep you quiet after.’ Shepard could feel every spot of warmth on his stomach from Alenko’s fingertips, pressing through his t-shirt, not even knowing that, once upon a time, it’d been white and clean. It’d been so long ago now it might just as well have been a fairytale. Hell, for all they knew, even those’d been true once. ‘Whatever you’re thinking, make it worse. That’ll be about right.’

‘Sometimes, Shepard, I think you’re full of it.’

‘And I think you’re kookie _all_ the time, Nosebleed.’

‘I’m saying we should do this again sometime,’ Alenko said. ‘Catch a movie while it’s still playing. I’m not gonna make you go to a dance or back to Serrice’s if you’re not a fan of the ice cream—’

‘Who said I wasn’t a fan of the ice cream?’

‘—but there’s this Boris Karloff movie they’re showing next week, and I was thinking about going. Can’t go to a scary movie alone, now can you?’

‘Can’t you go with Conrad?’

‘He’d be the first to get eaten by the mummy,’ Alenko said.

‘Not if Finch got eaten first.’ Damn, Alenko smelled good. Shepard was starting to get dizzy from it, and he still didn’t know how to give it a name. ‘You’re into fright flicks, huh?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe, yeah. It’s called _Corridors of Blood_. Sounds pretty wild. You in, Shepard?’

‘In like Flynn, I guess,’ Shepard replied.

‘Really? I mean—yeah, that’s cool. You think we could ride your bike there? Monsters won’t get us even though we can’t lock the doors and roll down the hood?’

‘Don’t get too excited, Nosebleed.’ Any monster that got them was gonna be the one that tailed Shepard to the drive-in, not something that crawled off the big screen.

‘…Guess I’ll get outta your hair now,’ Alenko said, although he held tighter first before loosening his grip. ‘Hey, you wanna meet somewhere? I could always hitch a ride with Conrad back to Purgatory. I don’t know what it is, but he really likes the place. It’s not so bad, once you get to know some people.’

_Some people_. Shepard couldn’t believe how shiny and new Alenko was, how easy he made Shepard roll over for him.

‘We’ll meet at the drive-in and if I see anybody, we don’t know each other. You got it?’

‘…Sure. I should’ve expected you’d say something like that, right?’

‘Yeah. You should’ve.’ Shepard waited while Alenko slid off the bike, cool air hitting the warmed leather at Shepard’s back now that Alenko wasn’t shielding him. Like a solid, warm wall of good feelings or something; the whole thing made Shepard want to crash himself into the nearest oak tree. Then he really _would_ be dragging down the property value, making good on an old promise. Candyland wouldn’t know what hit it, or why the gumdrops were melting all of a sudden.

‘Thanks for the ride.’ Alenko scuffed the toe of his shoe along the blacktop. He touched Normandy’s side like he knew it was an honor, stroking one of her hubcaps until his knuckles bumped Shepard’s thigh. It ricocheted through Shepard like a shot gone wild; it reminded him of the jukebox needle slipping off the vinyl, warping the music, slowing it down before speeding it way, way up. Time didn’t make sense around Alenko. Shepard made even less sense. ‘I’ll see you Saturday night.’

Alenko leaned in for the kiss. They were hidden behind the big oak tree at the top of the block, none of the lights on in the windows. That was the only reason why it happened, Alenko pushing his tongue deep inside Shepard’s mouth, leaving him breathless after it was over.

  
  
by [Crowthis](http://crowthis.tumblr.com)  


Of course, Shepard couldn’t let him see that. His head—technically, his hair—was big enough already. He looked away and drove off after, then wheeled the bike back around to make sure Alenko made it inside safe and sound. The guy’s head was in the clouds, after all. Rubes like that had no idea about taking care of themselves, looking after their own hides for a change. They thought the world was sunbeams and lemondrops, that motor oil was maple syrup.

But Alenko stood on the front steps of his blue-trimmed house for a long time, staring up at the sky, watching the clouds or the moon or the stars. Shepard watched him. The sky was like a giant, dark screen, nothing playing, the show long over, and two knuckleheads left behind to watch the silence ‘cause they thought it was trying to tell them something.

*

There were no phone calls. No meeting the parents, walking up the front steps and knocking twice on the door, then adjusting the angle of his tie.

Shepard didn’t own one of those things. He always figured it’d be like tying a noose around your own throat, then making sure it was nice and pretty while you choked to death because of it.  

It was kind of like being an international super spy, actually. _Shepard. John Shepard._ Finch gave him a look across Purgatory, then pulled a face, then made some kind of gesture Shepard turned his back on right away so he wouldn’t have to see the grand finale.

‘Who’s the lucky lady, Loco?’ James asked while Shepard ran a comb through his hair.

It was James’s abuela’s comb or something. James himself didn’t have too much hair to speak of.

‘You sure that’s not a tongue-twister, James?’

‘Yeah, well, you ever wanna bring her back for some huevos rancheros…’

Just like it was supposed to be. Only Shepard was stepping out through the back with a destination in mind, no gang with him, only hearing goodbye from the neon sign over Purgatory—shifting from red to blue and slanting across the blacktop in shapes that didn’t have names and were still doing all right without them.

Alenko was waiting in the same spot at the drive-in. Their spot, even. Shepard rolled his eyes.

‘It’s not gonna be all that comfortable,’ Alenko said. ‘I brought a blanket, for just in case.’

There was no way he’d be able to explain the grass stains on it after. Shepard elbowed him aside and Alenko slipped his hand into Shepard’s pocket, swift, without warning. His fingers only paused when they hit the nickel.

‘My lucky coin,’ Shepard said without looking over. ‘Good for jukeboxes.’

‘Jeez, Shepard.’

But Alenko was smiling. There was a downright cheeky twist in his voice that said so. He ran his thumb around the edge of the nickel; when he was done, his fingers were gonna smell like the metal and the metal was gonna smell like his fingers. Funny how that worked.

Alenko set up the blanket in their square after the flick had started. Shepard didn’t buy them tickets but there was space to spare; there was always space somewhere. The night air turned chilly by the time the screaming started and Alenko settled in by Shepard’s side, inching closer every time somebody on-screen kicked the bucket.

‘Dropping like flies,’ Shepard said.

He wanted a smoke.

His arm was around Alenko’s shoulders and it wasn’t like he could slide it free.

If that wasn’t proof that getting attached to somebody was a pain in the neck, than the actual pain in Shepard’s neck had to be. It came from leaning his temple against Alenko’s hair, the smell of Alenko’s pomade tickling the back of Shepard’s noise. ‘What the hell is that stuff, anyway?’ Shepard asked. ‘Shoe polish or something?’

‘Shh,’ Alenko said, holding one finger to his lips. Then, his cheeks flushed, because Shepard had done the same thing, and because Shepard was close to pinning him down right there on his cute little blanket and kissing him crazy.

_Jeez, Shepard_. Shepard repeated it like a broken record in his skull, all goofy, over and over. He thought about smoking since he wasn’t smoking, and the smell of Alenko’s hair, and the shape and swell of his mouth against Shepard’s finger, the weight and warmth of his side pressed into Shepard’s chest.

If any of the Reds could see him now, they wouldn’t even recognize him. Hell, Shepard barely recognized himself. And the actors had so much creepy makeup on Shepard couldn’t recognize them, either. The only thing Shepard could recognize was Alenko’s profile, the bump up top and the jut of his chin, the way he yawned all casual-like before slipping his arm around Shepard’s waist.

Cozy. Snug as two bugs in what might’ve actually been a rug. Shepard blinked. Nothing but fresh air—with some exhaust from the parked cars, of course—filled his lungs.

‘You scared, Nosebleed?’

‘It’s not too bad. I thought it was gonna be a real screamer.’

Shepard almost chuckled. He cleared his throat instead, but it was still there, stuck deep, twisting at the corners of his mouth.

The last flick he’d been to had been with Finch and a few of the Reds, Grunt from the bar, the works. They’d TPed most of the fancy cars and slashed a few tires. Crazy how that seemed like years ago now.

Even the start of the night felt like another lifetime.

‘You comfortable?’ Alenko asked.

‘Never think about it.’

‘What, seriously?’

‘No kidding.’

Alenko paused. Shepard hadn’t known how bad he wanted to hear the guy’s laugh until it came, breathless and surprised and not embarrassed by it one bit.

‘That’s…weird, Shepard.’

‘You’re weird, Nosebleed.’

‘Yeah, I guess I am. Not a contest you wanna win, right?’

‘No wonder you’re not scared—you’re talking through the whole movie.’

Alenko bit his bottom lip. Shepard would’ve done it for him but he was focused on the big screen, leaning closer, cheek against the leather on Shepard’s shoulder. He held still. It wasn’t gonna last. Nothing ever did. That made the good things bad and the bad things bearable. If you stopped expecting too much, you’d never get too disappointed.

‘Thanks for coming out with me, Shepard.’

‘Yeah. Sure. Whatever, Nosebleed.’

Shepard tilted his head back only to realize he was watching the sky, not the screen. It looked like it was gonna rain.

But it was always gonna rain _somewhere_.

The movie wasn’t over when it started to come down and Alenko had the bright idea of using the blanket to cover their heads. ‘We should… We should get out of here, huh?’ he asked, once the blanket was all but soaked through.

He looked embarrassed, like the rain was his fault. Like he’d been the one to ruin this, whatever it was. First real date, if you didn’t count kissing in an abandoned car lot a first date, which guys like Alenko usually didn’t. Guys like Shepard didn’t call anything a first date—so all they had was a rained-out drive-in movie and a motorcycle to drive them out of there, Alenko holding a blanket over both of them all the way.

‘Some night, huh?’ Alenko said.

The wind caught his voice, whipping it around Shepard’s face like his hair. Weird how a thing like that could tickle.

‘It’d be a shame to let it end here, though,’ Alenko added. That buffeted Shepard’s skin too, making the goosebumps down his spine tingle harder than Boris Karloff ever had.

The small things were scary, not the big ones. Tacks in the middle of the road blowing out your tire when you were going too fast to compensate, not creatures from outer space, aliens that didn’t exactly come because they wanted to go to the ice cream shoppe and try a scoop of chocolate with a scoop of strawberry.

When Shepard thought about it like that, he was practically the alien coming to visit—and Alenko was the misunderstood scientist trying to get through to a green-skinned, bug-eyed freak.

‘You’re pretty quiet,’ Alenko said, mouth closer to Shepard’s ear this time, and making him shiver worse than the cold rain. If anybody asked, Shepard would blame it on the rain anyway. ‘That’s okay, though. I can stop talking.’

‘Where to, Nosebleed?’ Shepard asked.

Alenko’s mouth twisted against his jaw. Up or down; Shepard didn’t know. ‘That movie was my big idea. Thought we might get scared and have to hold onto each other or something. But we didn’t even get to see the end.’

‘The bad guys all die,’ Shepard said. ‘They’re allergic to the rain or they’re killed by their one weakness—silver or flashlights or something, that’s how it usually goes—or they fall in love with the pretty girl and she lures them into a trap. Quicksand. Burning building. Evaporation laser.’

‘Wow. What a show.’

‘Ten movies for the price of one.’

‘You watch a lot of movies, Shepard?’

Shepard shrugged. He wasn’t trying to shrug Alenko off and Alenko held on tighter. ‘…When I’ve got the time.’

‘When you’re not riding around, you mean?’

‘Well, it’s not because of my paper route, that’s for sure,’ Shepard said.

Alenko closed his eyes; Shepard knew that because his eyelashes tickled, too. ‘Okay. Yeah. Of course not. …Though you’d probably be able to get it done pretty quick on a ride like this.’

‘Like Normandy’d ever let me use her for something like that.’

‘Hey, Shepard?’

Shepard waited. There was rain in his eyes, his hair wet, his back warm because Kaidan was pressed against it. It was the first time he’d felt like somebody had his back—literally—although it wasn’t a safe place for a guy like a Alenko to be.

‘Where do you wanna go?’ Alenko finally asked.

Shepard didn’t know. There were places he’d already been—Purgatory, the lot, everywhere else in Gastown including his place, and Alenko’s block, and Serrice’s, and the drive-in, and never inside Alenko’s house or James’s house or anywhere like that. He’d snuck into the movies; he’d been to a couple of diners. He’d stolen posters of teen sensation Garrus Vakarian out of dime store windows and he had a wall for them, unpainted, tacked up there with glue.

‘Anywhere,’ Shepard said.

‘That’s not exactly specific.’

‘Yeah. That’s the whole point.’

And maybe it was—just not in the way Shepard wanted it to be. Where he wanted to go, where he _really_ wanted to go, was up into the sky or down into the water. Also, he wanted to go to the aquarium, but it was too late for that. He wanted to watch the sharks swimming around, big fish in small tanks, and see the sting rays, and wonder what it’d be like to touch a jellyfish.

Alenko didn’t know any of that: what Shepard was thinking and how it got scrambled up inside of his brain. How it hurt sometimes to think about the places he wouldn’t see no matter how fast he could go.

‘Sometimes anywhere’s like nowhere,’ Alenko added. Shepard snorted.

‘You got a place in mind?’

‘Yeah. Let’s get some ice cream.’

‘Living dangerously, huh?’

‘Well, eating ice cream when you’re cold and wet...’ Alenko’s chuckle was this warm little breath creeping down Shepard’s collar, making the pulse in his throat kick up like a faulty engine. Shepard really needed that smoke, but there was no way his lighter was going to spark in this kind of weather. It was one thing to be cold and wet and another to feel wet behind the ears. ‘You know how to get there, or do you need directions?’

‘You show me a place once, Alenko, and I know how to get there.’ Shepard took the first turn he needed and headed back in the direction of downtown, where a shoppe that didn’t have their name on it was waiting for them anyway.

When he drove straight through a puddle, the spray bounced up behind them like a wave in a fish-tank.

*


	8. Chapter 8

  
  
by [Crowthis](http://crowthis.tumblr.com)  


Serrice’s was all but closed up for the night by the time they waltzed in. They were the only two customers in the place, all alone save for the unimpressed soda jerk.

‘Closing up soon,’ he said, taking off his hat.

‘Sign outside says you’re open until nine on Saturday nights,’ Shepard replied, leaning over the bar. ‘My watch says it’s only eight fifteen.’

‘You’re not wearing a watch,’ the soda jerk said.

The name on his pin was Donnelly. ‘Now you’re getting the idea, Donnelly,’ Shepard said. ‘Hey, Nosebleed—what’re you having?’

‘Root beer float, I guess. Too late for a sundae.’

‘Too late for a root beer float, too,’ Donnelly added, only he closed his mouth real quick when Shepard took out his lighter and flipped it open. ‘Okay, sure. One root beer float, coming right up.’

‘Make that two,’ Shepard said. He let Donnelly catch his eyes and gave him a look that added _and make it snappy_ , then turned around, elbows on the countertop, wet leather on clean Formica. The scenery was a hell of a lot nicer when there weren’t a bunch of leather-heads uglying the place up in their red team jackets with the white arms, crew-cuts and dumb jokes and everything. The place was almost nice now, cozy and private, Alenko wiping his feet sweet as you please on the welcome mat. ‘Where we sitting?’

‘A booth might not be too bad.’ Alenko started for the one by the window and Shepard followed, a hand jammed in his pocket. A nickel wouldn’t be enough for one root beer float, much less two. Shepard kicked the jukebox as he passed by and heard a familiar clatter, fishing inside for his prize. ‘…Looks like it’s your lucky day.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it, sure.’ Shepard flipped the coin in the air and caught it against his palm. ‘Shoot.’

‘You want me to… Oh. Uh, tails, I guess.’

Shepard slid into the booth across from Alenko before he lifted his palm. Their feet bumped under the table. Alenko’s cheeks were pink. Either he’d really liked that ride, or he was really looking forward to his ice cream. ‘…Looks like it’s your lucky day, more like. It sure isn’t heads.’

Shepard spun the coin on the table. It made its uneven way toward Alenko and as it started to wind down, Donnelly showed up with their sodas and ice cream.

‘These have extra scoops?’ Shepard asked.

‘Do pigs fly and play hopscotch?’ Donnelly replied.

‘I don’t know—you wanna join them and find out?’ Shepard tensed, starting for the guy, but Alenko cleared his throat around a mouthful of root beer.

‘S’good,’ he said. ‘You should try some, Shepard. It’s the best in town.’

Donnelly crossed his arms. Shepard looked at the straw, then back into the guy’s square face. He reached for the nickel and dragged it forward before he leaned into his straw, taking a slurp.

Fizzy. It tickled, same as everything else that night. It hit the backs of his teeth cold and shot straight up into his brain, making him feel like a yeti in a Karloff flick instead of Shepard, _Loco_ , a Tenth Street Red, anything he used to be. It was sweet and the ice cream was already starting to melt and Shepard blew a few bubbles before sucking up some more.

Alenko’s foot bumped his under the table. It didn’t feel like an accident, and Shepard knew all about accidents. How to cause them; how to get out before you were caught after.

‘Well?’ Donnelly asked. ‘Pigs flying yet?’

‘Yeah—I’m looking at one right now.’ Shepard grinned around his straw. The stuff wasn’t so bad; he could see himself getting used to the way it tasted, better than flat soda warm in their glass bottles after a full night turned into early morning down in Purgatory. Fizzy, sweet, already half gone—and Donnelly had this smug expression on his face like he’d invented the damn thing. ‘Go on, scram,’ Shepard said.

‘It’s the best root beer float I’ve ever had,’ Alenko added.

Donnelly’s sneakers squeaked on the clean floor—what used to be the clean floor, before Shepard tracked dirt and rainwater all over the tiles. He heard Donnelly go for a bucket and a mop, the sound of running water in the kitchen. When he turned, Alenko was staring Shepard’s way over the straw, holding it against his lips, one loose curl of hair falling over his forehead.

‘How do you really like it?’ Kaidan asked.

‘It’s nothing to write home about.’

‘…I should’ve figured you’d say something like that.’ Alenko swirled the straw in a circle, then went back in. Shepard had half a mind to race him to the bottom of the glass, but he was too busy watching Alenko’s mouth. That kind of distraction was why Shepard rode solo all the time. Nothing to get in the way; nothing to slow him down; nothing to hold onto him—and hold him back. ‘Hey, I told myself, if you didn’t like it… Dessert’s on me.’

‘Your money, if you wanna waste it,’ Shepard said. He spun the nickel. Donnelly started mopping. The rain came down harder, streaking across the big glass window in the front.

‘You’re a tough guy to converse with, you know,’ Alenko said. ‘You’re… You’re pretty easy on the eyes, though.’

‘Quit fooling.’

‘I’m not fool— Not kidding around,’ Alenko said. ‘Just trying to make conversation, that’s all.’ Their knees bumped this time. Shepard’s free hand, the one that wasn’t holding onto his straw, rubbed the front of his jeans over the thigh where the muscle’d tensed up, Alenko staring at him long and hard, not knowing what the hell he could see. It gave Shepard the heebie-jeebies the way the movie hadn’t. It got deep into him, warm to fight off the ice cream cold, the fizzy soda tickling the roof his mouth. ‘Go on, call me Nosebleed again. Tell me to make like an acorn and fall or…something.’

‘You’ve got root beer on your cheek,’ Shepard said.

Alenko’s knee banged into Shepard’s instead of rubbing against it and he went for a napkin. Nothing about him made sense—that kept coming home to Shepard like an old bike parked in the back lot of the warehouse he was crashing in. A first ride you couldn’t get rid of, even knowing how it couldn’t handle the way it used to anymore. They called that nostalgia, or just plain being a chucklehead.

Alenko wiped his mouth. Neat as you please, not on the back of his hand. His lips were pink from the cold again, the ice cream, with flushed cheeks to match. His next slurp of the float was just that—nothing more than air at the bottom of the glass.

‘Here.’ Shepard shoved his, still half full, across the table for him. ‘You’re paying for it, remember? Might as well get something for it.’

‘You don’t think the company’s enough?’

‘Donnelly? I don’t think he’s worth the nickel I took out of the jukebox.’

‘…That’s not exactly what I meant, Shepard.’ Alenko touched the backs of Shepard’s knuckles as he took the glass, mouth closing over the top of the straw. He didn’t talk in the middle of eating like some people with no class—Finch and Grunt, for the most part, but Shepard too, most days—because he was too good for that, so everything he said, he had to say with his eyes.

The ice cream didn’t sit well, all ice in Shepard’s chest. He reached for his pack of cigarettes only to realize it was empty, enough that he crumpled it up and tossed it to the wastebin across the parlor, bouncing off the wall and the rim and, finally, just making it inside.

‘You’d be pretty good on the basketball team, Shepard. Alliance High Specters need all the help they can get.’

‘Yeah—but my jacket wouldn’t go with the uniform.’

‘You could get a new jacket.’

Shepard leveled with Alenko—or leveled him with a look. Getting on his level was impossible even for a guy who knew how to scale a warehouse without a fire escape; there was no way Alenko would ever sink to Shepard’s level. So making eyes at him—that’d have to do.

‘…Or you could keep that one,’ Alenko said. ‘It’s a nice jacket.’

‘There’s nothing nice about it, Nosebleed.’

‘Sure there is.’ Twin spots of color showed up on Alenko’s cheeks. For some weird reason, they made Shepard’s ears feel hot. ‘The guy wearing it, for starters.’

‘Let me guess—you’ve been practicing that line.’

‘If I had, maybe it would’ve come out sounding better,’ Alenko said.

He bit his lower lip, all soft and pink and cold. There was hardly anything left in Shepard’s shakes. ‘The drinks are on me,’ Shepard replied.

‘Uh-uh. No way. I already told you, this is my treat. On account of you not finishing your float and everything.’

‘You must be the biggest sucker on the planet,’ Shepard said, leaning back and folding his legs. ‘Either that, or you like throwing money away.’

‘It’s not throwing it away, if it’s on a good time.’ Alenko took one last slurp but he didn’t look away from Shepard’s face. There was no way of knowing what he saw on there, what Shepard was wearing—his usual collection of freckles, or something that came hand in hand with the warm ears. Burning up, like Shepard had a fever. When he pushed his hair off his forehead he didn’t feel too hot, but then again, he’d never had a mom to press her palm to his skin and tell him he needed to get in bed and wait for soup that’d make him feel all better. ‘...Or if it’s on ice cream.’

‘Well, it’s your funeral. Your wallet’s funeral, more like.’ Chances were, Alenko wouldn’t even miss it. Neither would Mr. Alenko, who Shepard kept thinking of as Kaidan with gray hair and a big pair of glasses and the same kind of sweater, only not wet or muddy or bloody, or torn from too many high-jumps over private lot fences that were kept shut and topped with barbed wire for a reason.

To keep people out.

Or maybe…

Shepard thought about the aquarium he wanted to see, how all the tanks were there to keep the fish in. Even the shark, which could’ve taken everybody in the place on and won, had to be behind glass, thick sheets that wouldn’t break even if you had a head like a hammer and didn’t give up. You’d bust open your skull sooner than you busted out that way.

‘Nickel for your thoughts?’ Kaidan asked.

‘Keep the change,’ Shepard replied.

Alenko paid for the root beer floats and Shepard could still taste his on the roof of his mouth, in the back of his throat and on the tip of his tongue. He told himself it was what Alenko deserved for being so free and easy with cash that wasn’t his but in the end, Shepard was just a stingy date who wasn’t paying for what he had, much less what Alenko got.

And still, as crazy and mixed up as it was, Alenko wasn’t running as fast as he could in the other direction.

Shepard swung out of the booth. Nothing got in his way—no panels of glass, for example, or barbed wire. The whole aquarium was still, totally, inside his head, although it was pouring outside and there _was_ glass paneling the front window. If this was an aquarium, they were inside-out. Shepard stuffed his hands in his pockets. ‘Hey, Donnelly,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘You got any smokes?’

‘Chances of you making me enemy number one if I don’t say yeah?’ Donnelly asked.

‘Now you’re catching on.’

The cash register dinged. Shepard heard the rattle of change. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t want to know how much it cost, how close he came, how far away he still was. At least he could recognize that. It sure chafed, but he recognized it all the same.

Donnelly brought over a pack and let Shepard pull out two sticks—one for now and one for the road. ‘Maybe you’re not so bad after all, Don.’

‘Maybe pigs _do_ know how to fly, too,’ Donnelly replied.

‘You called him Don,’ Alenko said, standing next to Shepard while Donnelly headed into the back. ‘But I’m still Nosebleed, huh?’

‘If you have to ask, you’re definitely still Nosebleed, Nosebleed.’

Alenko laughed, all dry and warm. He was still damp from the rain, though, and Shepard’s jeans were stiff and cold, barely bending with his knees.

‘What do you say we grab some newspapers and try to make it back to my place?’ Alenko asked. ‘It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty close.’

‘Close to perfect?’

‘Close to Serrice’s.’

‘Huh.’ Shepard steadied himself with a long pull on the cigarette. Donnelly shouted something from the back, probably close to ‘Get outta here before I call the cops and they arrest the one in the leather jacket cause he doesn’t belong.’

‘Shepard?’ Kaidan asked.

James was wrong all along. He should’ve been calling him _Tiburon_ , for _shark._

‘Your funeral,’ Shepard said again, but really, it was the property value of Candyland they’d be burying. Shepard hadn’t been born yesterday. He wasn’t gonna pass up a chance to get in out of the rain when it was this bad, and he wasn’t gonna be good enough to leave a place for its own good a second time once he stepped inside.

Alenko wasn’t there yet, but someday…

Someday, he’d be sorry.

*

The garage was just like Shepard remembered it. The house didn’t look the same from the outside but only because they were rushing, racing toward it, holding a bunch of old, soaked newspapers over their heads that were nothing but garbage. And they held onto them anyway, not because it made sense but because their hands were so damn cold their fingers couldn’t let go.

Alenko got the garage door open while Shepard kept the newspapers high over both of them, pressed against Alenko’s back this time. The holes in his runners meant his socks were soaked through, and Alenko’s hair had finally, completely given up the ghost. Like a vampire in a Boris Karloff movie, the rain was its natural weakness, and it’d been exorcised.

The garage door banged shut behind them. No car—still. That meant no folks at home, just Alenko and the bad boy he was way too interested in spending time with. All that rain and you’d think he wasn’t playing with fire, or that he wouldn’t get burned—but that couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

Shepard’s sneaker squelched. He hadn’t even moved. Alenko blinked, then almost laughed, then gripped Shepard by the front of his t-shirt—plastered to his chest—and leaned up to kiss him, wet mouth on wet mouth. It didn’t taste like root beer floats or anything sweet to match the Candyland around them. It was rainwater, pure and fresh and simple, and the smoke that lingered inside Shepard’s mouth. Tobacco. Ash. Unfiltered.

‘I can taste your smokes,’ Alenko said—murmured, even—against Shepard’s lips.

Something about that took Shepard in the gut. Something about it made him start kissing Alenko back, wet hands muddy with newsprint on Alenko’s face.

Nobody kissed neat except for in the movies. And they never showed the part where noses bumped and teeth hit each other, when biting was a little too much—when biting happened at all. They kissed in the rain, sure, all the time, but not inside from the rain, dripping on the floor like two wet dogs.

There was no way Shepard could go deeper inside the house, get the grand tour, see the kitchen and the living room and the bedrooms, and track soggy footprints all over the carpet.

It was one thing ruining the property value of a sweater.

Besides, he wasn’t leaving any evidence behind. Nothing that’d say _Shepard Was Here_.

His fingers almost marked it out along Kaidan’s face but they stopped last second, when Shepard realized they still had ink on them, and it might end up that somebody could even read what they were trying to say. He raked them through Alenko’s hair instead, thick and stiff, and found the scar in a tangle of free, wet curls.

‘You have scars, Shepard?’ Alenko asked. Breathless. He sounded so damn good when he was like that, not enough air in his lungs but not backing down for anything or anyone. Not even Shepard. He was bearing down on Shepard instead, pushing his back against the wall, and the moment Shepard realized he needed it to keep them both up was the moment he knew what it was like to feel dizzy.

Weird. Crazy. Upside-down. And the worst part was knowing he didn’t flat-out hate it, either.

Like Alenko, the whole thing was screwball. And, because Shepard was a part of it, it had to mean _he_ was screwball, too.

Finch would have a field day with that one. It’d be like Christmas and his birthday and a day off all rolled into one with a cherry on top.

He couldn’t find out. He couldn’t know. None of the Reds could. Alenko was different—the word _special_ caught like gravel in Shepard’s tires before he shook it loose and kicked it away—and he wouldn’t last for a second down there in Shepard’s world, no matter how tough he was, no matter how strong his arms were when he held Shepard against the wall and touched his chest and kissed him like there wasn’t anything he wanted more in the whole wide world.

Of course there was. A lot of things. Some he already knew, some he wouldn’t know until later. He just wanted Shepard _now_.

Nothing good ever lasted.

Nothing bad ever did, either. An even trade. The odds were all right.

And Shepard was kissing Alenko back instead of answering the question.

‘Sure I do,’ he said finally. Also breathless. He didn’t sound anything like himself and he didn’t sound anything like Alenko. He didn’t sound anything like Finch, the Councilor, James, Timebomb Tim, Grunt or Conrad Verner. That was a good thing. _Be yourself_ , Garrus Vakarian said in an ad they ran on the radio for what seemed like forever one summer. _And if anybody else doesn’t like it, you know where to leave ‘em._

_By the side of the road._

You couldn’t leave yourself by the side of the road, after all. So it had to be everybody else every time.

‘They’re all over,’ Shepard added. ‘I’ve got plenty of ‘em. You want to know where they are, I’m not going to make it easy for you.’

‘No,’ Alenko agreed. ‘You don’t…really do that. I’ve noticed. I know.’

His mouth twisted, pressed against Shepard’s mouth, which twisted after it.

‘I’m… I’m gonna take off your jacket,’ Alenko said. ‘I’m gonna try to hang it up, too, so it doesn’t get… Anyway, I’m gonna take it off.’

‘Okay,’ Shepard replied.

Alenko slid his fingers under the sleeves, down over Shepard’s biceps. Alenko’s hands were wet; Shepard’s arms had actually been dry but clammy. They were damp now, Alenko getting stuck in the tight leather, which’d seized up from being soaked, before he managed to peel it off, inch by slow inch.

Cool air hit Shepard’s bare flesh. Alenko’s wet hands were starting to feel warm—or make Shepard feel warm, at least. There was a difference, as narrow as the air between their stomachs, thin layers of fabric clinging to their skin.

True to his word, Alenko found a coat hook somewhere above Shepard’s left shoulder and slid Shepard’s jacket right on. He touched Shepard’s chest once with the palm of his hand and said _oh_ , quiet, almost too quiet for Shepard to hear it.

‘Oh yeah?’ Shepard asked.

‘Yeah,’ Alenko replied. ‘Your shirt’s wet, Shepard.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

Alenko kissed him. Again. Again. So many times it was like a dumb punk gunning an engine trying to make a point. Again. _Again._ Shepard drew Alenko’s breath into his lungs instead of smoke but it choked him up the same way. If Alenko kept this up…

Shepard didn’t know what came next.

There was no destination.

That was the part he liked, the part he thought he liked, driving too fast towards nowhere with the wind filling up all the empty places he kept inside. Alenko rubbed down the center of his chest to his stomach, to his hip, knotting his fingers in the soggy fabric.

‘I’m gonna take it off,’ he said. ‘I’m gonna take it off, too.’

Shepard swallowed. He nodded. Alenko’s eyes were dark and bright at the same time. He was screwball; the whole thing was…

Shepard swallowed again. Alenko’s knuckles brushed his stomach, Shepard’s muscles jumping. He pulled the t-shirt off Shepard’s head and for a second, everything was black. Shepard didn’t know if his eyes were open or shut. He should’ve felt like nothing else existed but instead he felt like everything did, all at the same time, watching him when he couldn’t see them or watch back.

Then, the t-shirt came off.

‘You should take off your shoes if we’re gonna go inside,’ Alenko said. ‘Leave them with your socks to dry on that empty shelf, maybe?’

‘You think I’m going inside?’

‘Well, you’ve gotta get some dry clothes, don’t you?’ Alenko nodded toward the door. ‘Let’s make like a green light and go.’

If Alenko had a list of those somewhere he’d memorized off of gum wrappers or the sides of cereal boxes, Shepard wasn’t gonna know what to do with him. Figure out of it he was real, for starters, or if he was a body snatcher from another planet, because he couldn’t be this fresh and still be a human being.

Alenko’s white runners squelched all the way to the shelf before he bent down to take them off. Shepard didn’t so much stare at the footprints Alenko left behind as at how tight his jeans were—tight and wet, not much left to the imagination.

Getting perspective on a guy was important, especially if everything he did made no damn sense. _Earth to Nosebleed,_ Shepard thought, then shucked out of his sneakers without having to bend over, since the laces were already loose.

‘We oughta get in front of the fire, too,’ Alenko added. ‘…Mom’s a nurse. She knows about that kind of stuff.’

Of course she did. She probably put her palm to Alenko’s forehead and brought him homemade chicken soup whenever he was running a temperature, too.

The door swung open. Alenko stepped up, glancing over his shoulder like it didn’t mean a thing. He was nervous, though—not in a chicken kind of way, but a thoughtful one. It wasn’t about itchy palms or trying to figure out the closest exits. It was more like seeing things for what they were, figuring out what he wanted them to be.

Alenko bit his bottom lip, already swollen from how hard he kissed a guy. He was inviting trouble inside instead of trying to keep out of its sight, and the reason he was worried seemed to be because he didn’t know if trouble was going to accept his invitation.

Trouble always did. Sometimes, it even showed up without knocking first, uninvited, and it settled down for a long, long stay.

Alenko had no idea what he was doing.

‘Don’t you know you can’t invite the vampires inside, Nosebleed?’ he asked.

Alenko chuckled again, touching his messy hair. ‘I saw your reflection in the mirror over the counter at Serrice’s. You’re no vampire, Shepard.’

‘Could be a werewolf. Or a mummy.’

‘You wouldn’t even let me bandage you, remember? Mummy’s love bandages.’

Shepard shrugged, rolling his eyes but also rolling the tension out of his neck at the same time. ‘Never met anybody so hard-headed,’ he said, taking his first barefoot step.

‘You looked in a mirror lately?’

‘No, but I’m planning on it—now that I know I’ve got a reflection.’ Shepard had to take a step up to follow Alenko into the pantry, two sets of footprints already disappearing behind them. They’d dry up soon like they were never there. Shepard wiped the soles of his feet on a bristled welcome mat. It tickled and pricked; he’d never known how sensitive his skin was down there. He’d always thought it’d be a lot stronger, since after all, he spent so much time walking on it. ‘…Swell place you’ve got here.’

There were family portraits on the wall in the hallway. _Swell_ didn’t begin to cover it. It was square all right, and just like in the movies, all these pictures of Kaidan Alenko in every grade of school there was, the last one all the way at the end looking more or less exactly like Alenko when they’d first met.

Now, Alenko’s hair was down, falling out of the pompadour. His skin was white and flushed in places and his lips were swollen and his sweater was droopy.

‘Fireplace is in the living room,’ he said. ‘Sweaters are up in my room.’

‘Be weird if it was the other way around,’ Shepard replied. Nice and easy. Playing it cool.

Alenko’s laugh disappeared like smoke in the air or like dry footsteps left by clean, white shoes. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I guess it really would. All topsy-turvy. You…wanna come up to my room, Shepard?’

‘If you’re thinking I’ll call you Nosebleed any less once I’ve been in there, you’ve got another think coming.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Alenko said. ‘I don’t tend to think so much at all, when I’m around you.’

‘That’d explain a whole lot.’

‘But it brings up more questions than it answers.’ Alenko touched the banister. The wall to the side of the staircase had pictures, too, marriage photographs of a nice-looking dolly who had Alenko’s eyes holding onto a shorter fellow with Alenko’s hair. Not styled the same, but Shepard saw the resemblance. A tux and a white dress—and Alenko’s eyes staring Shepard’s way.

Shepard didn’t do things half-assed. It was all or nothing, and right now…

He was already inside.

It wasn’t exactly a Jonah and the whale situation, either. Shepard rubbed the back of his head, hand coming away wet. ‘Sure, Alenko. You gonna show me your stamp collection? Introduce me to all your stuffed animals?’

‘Maybe someday,’ Alenko said. ‘Just not on the first date. I don’t like to get their hopes up somebody might stick around. Can’t let them get too attached right away.’

_Funny guy_. Shepard shook his head, trying to catch a clear look at the scar on the back of Alenko’s neck, but there were too many shadows, too many dark curls getting in the way.

Maybe some other time.

And maybe not.

The first step creaked under Shepard’s weight. That was the kind of thing that’d get him caught if he’d been sneaking in; he tensed up before he realized Alenko hadn’t turned around. Alenko creaked on the sixth step and Shepard avoided it, silent all the way to the top.

‘Bathroom’s that way,’ Alenko said. ‘In case you want to dry up. There’s clean towels in the closet. Either way, we’re gonna need a couple of those.’

‘Where’s the closet?’ Shepard asked.

It was in the hall—a hall closet; Shepard had heard about those, and he knew they had linens in them and everything—and Alenko opened the door while Shepard took the towels down for him. As light as they were, they were awkward to get his arms around. There were a lot of them, too, all white and fluffy and smelling like…something clean. Like a Laundromat, only without the cigarette smoke and the sweat stains and the disinfectant. Once Shepard used them, they wouldn’t be clean anymore.

‘Bedroom’s this way. You like hot chocolate, Shepard?’

‘I can handle the heat,’ Shepard said.

Alenko opened the door into the one room Shepard _really_ didn’t want to see. No posters of Garrus Vakarian—he had one of teen idol Liara T’soni and then some Twilight Zone stuff, which Shepard should’ve been expecting. He had a big bed and a desk and a dictionary and a pocket-sized dictionary on top of the regular-sized one, and pencil sharpeners and bookcases with plenty of books and a balcony looking out over the bay. Shepard would’ve been able to see the water if there hadn’t been so much water getting in the way.

‘It’s really coming down,’ Alenko said.

So there they were, talking about the weather. Shepard’s t-shirt clung to his skin. Without his jacket, his arms were always going to feel naked. There was no way around that and no way around any of this, either.

Alenko took a towel. ‘My hair must look pretty awful right now.’

‘Seems fine to me.’

‘You really think so?’

Shepard slung his towel over his head, rubbing his own hair as dry as it’d get. The pomade he’d borrowed earlier had all washed out—it wasn’t the good stuff like Alenko’s. It never lasted. He liked it that way. ‘You cruising for a compliment, Alenko?’

Damn, the towel was soft. Soft as Alenko’s mouth, two of the softest things in the world. Bare feet and wet denim and t-shirts. Alenko, towel around his shoulders, plucked at the top button on his cardigan.

‘Gonna have to start a collection of ruined sweaters,’ he said.

‘Better than stamps. More original.’

‘Yeah, but how come when everybody says ‘be yourself’ they don’t actually mean it?’

Shepard eyed Alenko up and down and landed somewhere in the middle. That sweater needed to come off. He was gonna catch a cold that way, not knowing the first thing about what was best for him.

‘You’ve got a seat in your window,’ Shepard said finally.

‘Used to be my favorite place to sit when I was a kid. You wanna…’

‘Sure. Whatever.’

Alenko sat, taking off his sweater, setting it neatly over the back of his desk chair. He had freckles on his arms. Shepard hadn’t seen them without a sweater until now. He sat down too, towel around his shoulders, and Alenko scooted closer. Shepard’s heart threatened to do some kind of somersault right up his throat and out his mouth. Maybe it was a bad reaction to the root beer float. Maybe he wasn’t meant for things that tasted good with people who looked at him sideways and kind of happy, like they thought it was a good thing being caught up in his whirlwind instead of a bad one.

Alenko’s cheek bumped Shepard’s shoulder. At least he was leaning on the towel, a dry spot, and not Shepard himself. There was something between them, a buffer that’d keep Alenko from getting too close to fast.

Like he wasn’t too close already.

*


	9. Chapter 9

Shepard scooted on out of there when the rain stopped. It was almost three in the morning and Alenko was so sleepy his goodbye kiss was closer to a goodbye yawn.

‘Hey,’ he added, waking up, eyes focusing, while Shepard—not knowing what the hell to do with the towel, anyway—half folded and half balled it up, then stuffed it on the chair. ‘Could we maybe do this again sometime? …You could even call me kookie.’

‘Drive-in?’ Shepard asked.

Alenko’s smile was basically like sunlight in the middle of the night, while there were still rainclouds overhead. ‘And Serrice’s after.’

Shepard’s shoes and socks hadn’t dried all the way. His jacket had, at least, and his t-shirt. The denim had tightened up and riding Normandy back the whole way in silence, Shepard could only think about how cold his back was without somebody warm leaning against it.

Finch was still up, naturally, and watching James wipe-down Purgatory’s counters and private booths without lending a helping hand. He whistled when Shepard came in and Shepard waved, _yeah, I hear you, now shut that mouth before your brain falls out._

It might’ve happened a few years ago. That’d explain everything.

‘So, Loco,’ James added, grinning, and Shepard sighed.

‘Keep on dreaming,’ he told them, ‘’cause you’re never gonna know the places I’ve been.’

‘That good, huh?’ Finch pretended to faint over an upside-down bar stool. ‘Tell me all about her. Blonde? Brunette? … _Redhead?_ ’

‘Out of your league, Finch, and that’s the damn truth.’

‘Just don’t let some dolly get between you and the Reds, Shep,’ Finch said. ‘It always happens. Chicks break up a good thing and you’re too blind to her _attraction_ to see it coming.’

‘You gonna be my lookout for a change, Finch?’ Shepard asked. ‘Actually tell me when danger’s on the rise instead of falling asleep at a checkpoint?’

‘Hey—you didn’t get pinched that time, did you? The way you go on, it’s like you got caught.’

‘One of these days, Finch…’ Shepard felt himself grinning but he didn’t feel himself mean it. ‘I’m done wasting time shooting the shit with you two.’

‘All tired out, huh?’ Finch asked.

‘You know, _I_ heard gentlemen don’t kiss and tell,’ James said.

‘Good thing Shep’s not a gentleman, right?’ Finch’s laugh made Shepard think of a bike nobody knew how to take care of. Potential under the surface, but the gaskets were definitely blown. It wasn’t an ugly sound but it wasn’t Alenko’s private chuckle, either, something that’d worked its way inside of Shepard’s chest and now, Shepard was never gonna be able to let it go. ‘C’mon, Shep, what’s she like? The way you’re acting, she’s gotta be a real dog or something. And when am I gonna get to meet her, show her how a _real_ Red rides?’

‘You wish, and only in your dreams,’ Shepard said. ‘Anything I’ve gotta take care of tomorrow? ‘Cause I was planning on sleeping.’

‘She tired you out that bad, huh?’ Finch whistled again, with too much air for it to be sharp. ‘Damn, Shepard. You’re the dog, that’s what. I always knew you’d be a real lady killer someday. Fine, fine, quit giving me those peepers. Councilor hasn’t said much, you dig? Seems like it’s all radio silence from management—but that doesn’t mean you should let yourself get soft during the vacation.’

‘Worry about yourself, Finch,’ Shepard said. ‘If anybody’s soft here… It sure as hell isn’t Vega.’

‘You coming tomorrow for some huevos, Loco?’ James asked.

Shepard was already out the door, turning the corner, heading into the lot. He dried off the top of the car he’d been working on, engine still not running just right, and spread out on the hood, kicking his right leg up over his left. He had one cigarette in his pocket and he pulled it out, waiting for his lighter to catch. Water must’ve gotten inside, ‘cause it took longer than usual, but finally there was a flame, small and hot. Shepard stared at it for a while.

The inside of Alenko’s house hadn’t been a damn thing like Shepard pictured it. It felt real, not like a television set. Shepard lit his cigarette and smoked and stared at the stars and thought about Alenko, tucked in and sleepy in his cute little bed, all night long.

In the morning, Shepard got back to work on the car. He finally got the engine sounding smooth, no thanks to any of the guys; Finch said they were heading out for a ride and to blow off Cerberus in the submarine races, and did Shepard wanna come?

‘You can bring the lucky lady,’ Finch added. ‘Make it a real hot date.’

‘Why don’t you make like a toilet and piss off, huh, Finch?’ Shepard asked.

He had the day to himself. He delivered the car, almost as good as new, and walked the whole way back. He changed his t-shirt and nicked a pack of smokes from the gas station and hopped on Normandy to the Drive-In—where Alenko was waiting.

That was how it started.

Only it’d already begun long before that, if Shepard was being honest with himself, which he saw no reason to be. It was what it was. They were spending time together, him and his Nosebleed, watching movies, drinking milkshakes and ice cream floats and sharing sundaes with two cherries on top.

‘Sure,’ Shepard said, when Alenko asked if he could have the second cherry.

If he didn’t get a taste for it, he wouldn’t miss it when it was gone.

But he forgot about that—sometimes, kissing Alenko goodbye in the garage instead of by the front door. Still showing up, even if he _was_ running out of excuses as to why he didn’t want any hot chocolate. He stopped himself right before fessing up he liked vanilla better and said, ‘Do I look like the kind of guy who drinks hot chocolate by the fireplace, Nosebleed?’

‘Yeah,’ Alenko said. ‘…Yeah, I guess you don’t.’

Shepard looked at himself in the mirror that night, in the place he’d rebuilt in the warehouse overlooking the same old lot full of the same old busted hotrods. The run-down building cast a big, dark shadow over Purgatory, with a view of some smoke stacks instead of the clean, shiny water of the bay. There was no seat in the window. Shepard sat on the windowsill like a normal person—because normal people didn’t have that cushy lifestyle.

The mirror’s glass was streaked; Shepard didn’t have anybody to tidy up during the day. He could still see his reflection: a dumb punk he didn’t recognize staring back at him with bright blue eyes. He tried slicking his hair into a pompadour like Alenko’s, then watched the whole thing come falling down again. All he could do was laugh at himself for being such a screwball.

What did he expect, anyway? He curled his lip like Garrus Vakarian in all the posters, more of a sneer than a smile, and shrugged into his jacket on his way out the door.

‘Got another race, Shep,’ Finch said, falling in beside him as Shepard headed for the bikes. ‘C’mon, you know you’re our secret weapon, right? Pretty sure assassin’s gonna be there, too, and he’s itching for a rematch. What’s that thing you always say, huh, Shep? Wait until they’ve got something to prove and leave ‘em in the dust every time, right?’

‘Not today, Finch,’ Shepard replied. ‘Not tomorrow, either. I’ll see you next time Councilor’s actually got something to throw our way.’

Like dogs after a bone. Shepard left Finch in the dust to\ his bike two blocks away from Alenko’s place and then he waited, foot braced on the pavement, for Alenko to turn the corner. He watched somebody’s lapdog—looked like a cocker spaniel—running around in their front yard, yipping like it was the end of the world. Even behind the fence, the dumb mutt was having a great time going in circles, not getting anywhere, flopping over onto its back and showing off its tummy.

‘You like dogs?’ Alenko asked, arms around Shepard’s waist.

‘Where I come from, dogs don’t bark,’ Shepard replied. ‘Gets in the way of biting.’

‘You didn’t answer my question,’ Alenko said.

He had a thing for pointing out the obvious.

They drove all the way down to the old quarry, past Gastown and a ways out from Downtown, too. Shepard threw a few chunks of torn-up blacktop down the shafts. Hell, it was just like going out for a picnic and skipping stones over the lake, except for the part where it was tossing concrete into abandoned holes in the ground and listening to the echoes they made as they went down and down, out of sight, out of sound, and finally gone for good.

‘This some kind of underground game I don’t know about on account of being such a square?’ Alenko asked.

‘Sure it is. Underground literally,’ Shepard said.

Another dumb joke—and when Alenko laughed, Shepard couldn’t tell if it was on him or on both of them or what.

He didn’t laugh, but his mouth got twisty from trying to hold back a grin and frown at the same time. There were these two crazy different things he wanted. To get out and leave Alenko behind, or to leave everything else behind for Alenko.

Maybe he’d flip a coin.

His luck was never that good, though.

‘Hey, Shepard…’ Alenko scooted in closer, unwrapping the sandwiches he’d brought in a brown paper bag. It almost _was_ a picnic, the two of them sitting next to Normandy, Shepard wondering what kind of cheese was under the thick slices of white bread and if that was real turkey in there or what. It tasted good, either way. But it stuck in Shepard’s throat like chunks of blacktop, gravel and grit in his throat for the rest of the day.

‘What’s eating you, Nosebleed?’

‘…Nothing.’ Alenko never talked while he was eating. Guys like Alenko never did; it’d kill their mothers, then make ‘em roll over in their graves. The bread didn’t even have the crusts on. It was cut into triangles, not straight halves. Shepard thought about Alenko sitting at breakfast with a pile of scrambled eggs on his plate, a full glass of milk; he wondered if Alenko would like huevos. ‘Everything. I don’t know.’

‘Thinking too hard’s bad on your digestion, so I’ve heard,’ Shepard said. ‘Sooner or later, you’re going to have to take pills for it like an old man.’

In one of those sweaters, he could’ve looked like one already, at least from far away. But up close, he looked younger than he was—except for when he smiled and little crinkles formed around the corners of his eyes.

‘Maybe then it’ll make sense if you call me Alenko all the time.’

‘Yeah, Nosebleed?’

‘Yeah, Shepard.’

Stubborn. There was a crumb on his bottom lip. Shepard must’ve been staring at it, because Alenko licked it away, then reached over for Shepard’s hand.

Compared to Alenko’s kisses, how deep and hard they could get, all tongue and no time for breathing, holding a guy’s hand was no big deal. Nothing to write home about, if you had a home to write to. Some people did. Some didn’t. Alenko threaded his fingers through Shepard’s fingers and rubbed the center of Shepard’s palm with his thumb, over the lifelines he’d learned about in one of Garrus’s movies. A fortune teller at the beach’d gone over them and Shepard had seen that flick no fewer than thirteen times in thirteen days, until he knew what each one of those lines meant. Longevity and romance and…stuff. But the main one’d been cut short on Garrus’s palm.

So was Shepard’s. Just like Garrus.

It might’ve been Shepard’s favorite movie ever made.  

‘I know it’s something only a square would do,’ Alenko said. His thumb, soft, tickled Shepard’s skin, not so soft. Shepard’s fingers were still stained with motor oil and tobacco and lighter fluid and gasoline and metal polish, burned by engines and cigarette stubs and plenty in between. ‘Where’d you get this scar, anyway?’

He must’ve been talking about the one below the heel of Shepard’s palm, wide enough around to shape the bottom of Shepard’s thumb.

_Barbed wire fence: the first encounter._

‘Assassin tried to cut my finger off with a pocket knife when we went one on one.’

‘No way.’

‘You’d better believe it.’

‘And if I don’t?’

‘Your—’

‘—funeral,’ Alenko finished.

He had to be so damn proud of himself about it, didn’t he? Shepard licked his lips this time and Alenko took it like an invitation, which it could’ve been. Mixed signals. Some kind of code. Alenko was still holding Shepard’s hand, knee bumping his thigh.

Shepard threw old chunks of torn-up blacktop out of his window that night, watching them shatter and skitter over the empty parking lot. Chances were, he wouldn’t hit anybody—or anything.

‘Shep,’ Finch said the next morning. ‘Earth to Shep. _This is earth speaking_.’

‘If _you’re_ earth speaking, then I’m thinking earth’s doomed,’ Shepard replied.

The latest vehicle had come in. She had a nice frame, just needed some new and improved parts under the hood. James held one of her doors while Shepard checked the upholstery, then slid back out. She was good to go, no need to get the sewing kit.

‘Yeah, you’re that funny, Shep. Seems to me like you’re stepping out on the Reds, though, and you know how Councilor doesn’t like anybody stepping out on the Reds.’

‘You know how _I_ don’t like mouthpieces that can’t keep quiet,’ Shepard said. ‘Never stopped you from blabbing too much before.’

‘Just saying.’ Finch kicked something Shepard might’ve tossed out the window the night before. It disappeared under the body of a car, hit a tailpipe, and clanged.

‘Whatta shot,’ James said.

Shepard’s mouth twisted. Again. He had to pull that in, steer it somewhere else. Finch was watching him extra close—he didn’t have anything better to do—and it’d be just like him to finally get observant this late in life.

‘Just saying what?’ Shepard asked. ‘You gotta speak up, Finch. I can’t hear you over all the noise your mouth’s making.’

‘Just _saying,_ you need to get your head back in the races. Cerberus thinks they’ve got us running scared these days. Thinks _you’re_ too chicken to show up and defend your title against Assassin.’

Shepard felt it: familiar heat, cold pride to match, blood racing the way only a challenge used to do. But it wasn’t as hot as Alenko made him feel or as cold as thinking about Alenko after did, either. Alenko was ten times bigger than some show-down on the old strip, tearing up asphalt, choking on the stink of burning rubber.

Shepard wiped down the hood with a quick swipe, then leaned against it, eyes fixed on Finch. ‘What about you, Finch? You can’t take him?’

‘Fine, Shep. Sure. That’s the way you wanna play it, I’m out. I’m Tenth Street, man, and I stick to the Reds. Blood’s thicker than water and you know what color blood is.’

‘How long you think he’s been practicing that line, Loco?’ James asked.

‘Three nights straight in front of the Purgatory bathroom mirror,’ Shepard replied. ‘Must’ve sounded better with the jukebox going.’

James chuckled, shaking his head. ‘Don’t wanna piss a guy like that off, though. S’what my abuela’s always saying. You cross somebody you never met before, that’s one thing. But an old friend… Old friends know you better than you know yourself, sometimes.’

‘Sure,’ Shepard said. ‘Good thing _Finch_ doesn’t know anything.’

It tickled the back of his throat like a bum cigarette; no amount of smoking could burn off the taste. When he met Alenko at the drive-in as the sun went down, Alenko’s nose wrinkled. ‘That’s a lot of smoking, Shepard. You’re gonna get your own weather forecast with that kind of cloud following you around.’

Shepard shrugged out of his jacket, letting Alenko wear it while they watched the movie. While Alenko’s hand crept between them. While he covered Shepard’s bruised knuckles with his palm.

‘You been hitting people again, Shepard?’ Alenko asked.

‘Nah.’ Shepard tried to remember what fresh air tasted like. At least there were exhaust fumes from the parked cars to make him feel right at home. ‘Another busted engine.’

‘You need another pair of hands?’

‘Why would I? I’m scuffing this pair up just fine on my own.’

Alenko traced the shape of Shepard’s knuckles like they were a map to somewhere, like the dips between were valleys and the knuckles themselves were mountains. There was another map like that—in the stains on the frame of the windowsill, one on the bottom and one on top. Places Shepard wouldn’t ever go. Sights he’d never see. Trips he took around the world but only when he closed his eyes.

‘You’re a walking caution sign, Shepard,’ Alenko said. ‘Only…without the caution sign.’

‘Nosebleed, that’s the smartest thing I ever heard you say.’

Donnelly had their usual ready at Serrice’s and wanted to know everything about the flick—except, of course, for the ending. ‘Mummy dies,’ Shepard told him, hitting the jukebox idly. Nothing came out, but it did start playing again, quiet and proper, not a thing like the one down in Purgatory. ‘They burn him so he won’t come back. Man, it sure was something watching him go up in flames.’

‘Jeez.’ Donnelly slid two floats over the counter. Shepard picked them both up before he realized what he was doing—bringing them over to Alenko like he had a job at the place. ‘Thanks for nothing.’

‘You too, soda jerk,’ Shepard said.

The cold had Shepard’s teeth aching in no time. The heat from Alenko’s knees bumping his made a bunch of other stuff ache until every part of Shepard, for one reason or another, hurt like hell.

‘How come you never finish?’ Alenko asked.

‘Saving room for dessert,’ Shepard replied.

Shepard drove Alenko into the empty garage, thinking the whole way about Alenko alone inside and getting ready for bed: slipping off his jeans, folding his socks and his sweater, changing into a pair of pajama pants, lying on his back with his chest rising and falling. It’d be warm in that bed, warm like nothing else. Warm like Alenko’s arms, even.

Shepard was the sucker here, not Alenko.

‘Hey, Shepard,’ Alenko said. ‘I was wondering…’

Never a good sign.

Shepard braced himself by bracing Normandy. She braced him back.

‘Well? Don’t leave me hanging, Nosebleed.’

‘I was wondering if you’d wanna wear this,’ Alenko said finally, fishing something out of his pocket. It was a pin; Garrus’d been pinned too many times for Shepard to count on both hands in his flicks, always by a pretty dolly who thought of him like a bad boy she could turn good again. ‘You don’t even have to wear it. Just…keep it. If you don’t wanna mess up the leather.’

‘Wouldn’t match my jacket.’

‘I figured you’d say that.’

‘Hey, what’s it made out of, anyway? Is that real silver?’

‘Sure. Yeah, it is. …Why’re you asking?’

‘No reason.’ Shepard stared at the toolbox on the shelf. Nothing in there could fix his engine now that it was dragging. He’d hitched himself onto the wrong ride once he ran out of gas; that was the only explanation. And, now that he was all cushy with it, he didn’t know how to jumpstart his life again. ‘Guys see something shiny in Purgatory, they take it.’

‘You’d let ‘em take it?’ Alenko asked. ‘…If you took it first, I mean.’

‘Yeah right. They’d be crying mommy in no time flat.’

‘Just knowing that’s enough, I guess.’ Alenko must’ve been smiling. Shepard couldn’t see his face but he knew every inch of it, and what tone of voice matched what expression. As it turned out, he’d been watching Alenko more than he’d been watching the big screen. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’

‘Hey,’ Shepard said.

‘Hey’s for horses,’ Alenko replied.

Shepard had taught him that one.

‘I got something that’s silver, too,’ Shepard said. He fished one of the nickels out of his pocket and shoved it over. ‘Here. Don’t say I never gave you anything.’

Alenko almost held Shepard’s hand again just taking the coin from him. ‘I never said that.’

‘Yeah, well… Don’t even think about it.’

‘…That’s not what I’m thinking about,’ Alenko said.

His goofy grin stayed with Shepard on the ride back to Gastown, pinned to his chest under a leather lapel.

*

  
  
by [Crowthis](http://crowthis.tumblr.com)  


Shepard caught a late show, Garrus Vakarian stars in _Fleet and Flotilla_ , seeing as how he couldn’t sleep that night. It was one of the romantic flicks, not exactly Shepard’s favorite type, but Garrus played it cool and close to the vest the way he always did. There was something to learn from that guy—like how to be wild, how to speak softly and break noses when the face they were a part of least expected it.

Shepard flexed his knuckles, leaning back against the seat, fishing around in an abandoned popcorn bag that’d only been half-finished.

Garrus was after some dolly in the film, all done up, from the right side of the tracks. And when he showed up under her window tossing pebbles at the glass, none of the lights in the neighborhood came on except for one.

Hers.

It sure must’ve been nice to be in movies.

The pin in Shepard’s pocket had a sharp tip. Shepard pressed it into the center of his thumb over and over until it really started to hurt—and that was how he knew it was there.

Nobody was waiting up for him when he got back. No lights on in the warehouse windows, even Purgatory’s big sign dimmed. Shepard heard a siren wail in the distance, sound warping into silence.

Home sweet home.

But maybe, Shepard thought, pricking his thumb like some kind of dumb princess from a fairytale, Garrus had the right idea. When didn’t he? The guy always knew when to stop and when to go—that the answer to the first was never, and the answer to the second was always. You had to make the opportunities present themselves. If you sat around waiting for a green light, the red would never change.

Red lights. Tenth Street Reds. One and two equaled three.

Shepard let go of the pin and took out the nickel in his pocket instead. He rolled it between his fingers for a while until the smell of tobacco’d been worn down by the smell of metal and the coin didn’t look like it was shiny or ever had been.

That was the effect Shepard had on things.

‘Heads or tails,’ Shepard said.

He was talking to himself. Alenko wasn’t the only kookie one in town.

But there had to be a line drawn somewhere. Terms for the bet, laid out clear and simple and clean. Even Shepard knew that.

Heads, he headed over to Alenko’s the next night and threw rocks at his window. Small ones—loud enough to be heard, but for once the point _wasn’t_ breaking the glass.

Tails, and he put his tail between his legs and high-tailed it out of this mess, leaving Alenko’s pin with the spare key under the doormat. Easy as pie, though according to James, pie wasn’t an easy thing to make.

Shepard flipped the coin. He didn’t call it or uncover it on the back of his hand for a long time, longer than it should’ve been. Nobody was waiting for him and nobody was listening, so there wasn’t any reason he could see for hoping the coin fell on one side over the other. Hell, even he didn’t know why he was waiting so long to find out for himself what’d already happened.

Then, what felt like hours of hard riding later, he lifted his hand.

Heads.

Shepard stuffed the coin back in his pocket, the same one with the pin. They jingled like loose change. He leaned his head against the window frame and watched the sun come up over the used car graveyard, hitting puddles of motor oil and shinning bright enough to hurt Shepard’s eyes.

Eventually, he drifted off to dreamland, which was full of candy and candy shoppes.

That was one way to kill a day of waiting.

By the time Shepard woke up, the sun was behind him, somewhere a lot closer to setting. Florists would be closing up by now but Shepard hadn’t been planning on bringing any dumb flowers around to Alenko’s place, anyway. He wasn’t that far gone yet—and he didn’t know the first thing about them, other than roses being red and violets being blue, and how it only made sense for the rhyme, not because it was true.

Hey, that was a rhyme, too.

Garrus didn’t bother with flowers. He showed up or he didn’t and that was closer to the truth that some handful of pretty things that died fast and also happened to have a mess of thorns. Seemed like a mean present as far as Shepard was concerned: dressing it up to look nice, but hurting you before you realized it could.

Shepard stuck with a leather jacket and a motorcycle he parked, at dusk, two blocks away, behind an old oak tree. Nothing could grow that big or for that long without having a game plan—not to mention prime real estate as far as safety was concerned.

Normandy’d be all right. She wouldn’t be happy in the Alenko garage, anyway, and neither would Shepard knowing she was somewhere an old station wagon was supposed to be.

The thing about Candyland, Shepard thought as he stuffed his hands into his pockets and headed toward one white fence out of all the other white fences, was that it didn’t even know it was made out of candy and spun sugar. The place was enough to give a guy a toothache, a sore spot inside of his mouth he couldn’t stop poking with his tongue.

Families were eating their family dinners, lights on in dining room windows. Yeah, it was about that time. Shepard heard a dog barking but it must’ve been inside, too, called by a whistle, being fed from a bowl with the tags on its collar jingling. When Shepard blinked, he pictured Alenko snapping his fingers. He pictured himself running to him instead of as fast as he could in the other direction.

He smoked in the Alenkos’ backyard for a while in the shadow of a tree, kicking the old tree-swing, crushing the cigarette butts beneath his right heel and scattering the ashes around like he was casing the joint and couldn’t afford to leave any evidence behind.

So maybe he was. So what?

It was a free country, a free Candyland. He wasn’t picking gumdrops off the doorframe or stealing anything from inside. What Alenko gave, he gave away for free. Shepard was only watching the light in Alenko’s big window with the cozy window-seat go on and stay on, darkened now and then by the movement of a shadow inside.

No doubt about who it was. The only guy in there was Alenko.

Studying, or reading, or talking on the phone with a dolly in a cheerleader uniform or a square with a flat-top. Yeah, Shepard knew the type. He’d seen them all.

Alenko’s folks were away on business, Alenko’d said, his mom going with his pop for once, and everybody else on the block was too busy with their own private worlds around the dining room table to notice when Shepard found a pebble that was just about the right size and lobbed it square at Alenko’s window.

It pinged off the glass, vibration Shepard felt in his clenched teeth. He blinked and swallowed; his mouth tasted like ash, not sweet sugar candy.

Then, there was nothing but silence. Shepard bent down for another pebble, checked to make sure Alenko wasn’t about to open the window and get beaned, tested the weight, and tossed his second knock-knock. Another perfect hit dead center.

Shepard didn’t miss. He could’ve, if he ever wanted to—but he never wanted to.

The shadow came back, passing across the frame of light. Almost like watching a movie on a small, square screen. Black and white.

But Alenko rolled open the window, sticking his head out, not even knowing who was down below. He leaned forward with his palms on the windowsill, kneeling against the window seat, searching the ground with this look like hope in his eyes and even tucked into the corner of his mouth.

Shepard took the last drag on his cigarette and dropped it, crushing it into the dirt, kicking it across the roots of the tree. The swing bumped into the back of his knee and somehow, Alenko knew exactly where to look for him.

‘Hey,’ Alenko whispered, loud enough that Shepard could hear it. ‘…Were you throwing stuff at my window?’

‘Way to play it cool, Nosebleed,’ Shepard replied.

Even that was more than he’d give anybody else.

Alenko shook his head—like he was still trying to figure it out, or thought every equation had a solution the way they did in one of his textbooks for school. Shepard knew what the Councilor called him: an unknown variable. Everybody needed a little of that in their lives, at least for a little while.

‘I’ll come down and let you in,’ Alenko began.

Shepard waved him off.

There weren’t too many trees in Gastown but Shepard knew how to climb ‘em all the same. If you didn’t have to worry about scuffing up your clothes and if you didn’t mind roughing up your hands a little, then it was easy. Easier than pie. A piece of cake. A cherry on top of a sundae.

That wasn’t the saying.

Hand over hand, Shepard found the knots in the trunk of the tree, swinging himself around to the thickest branch—the one that led straight to Alenko’s window—and shimmied forward. Alenko reached out for him and Shepard went for the windowsill instead, but his fingers closed around Alenko’s and gravity slid out from underneath Shepard’s knees, the branch swaying, Alenko pulling him in.

Shepard ducked under the window but banged his shoulders against it and he could’ve sworn the whole house shook. _Smooth, Shepard_ , he thought, right before Alenko gripped him by the back of the jacket and started kissing him.

Shepard stopped thinking.

It was pretty easy to do that with Alenko around.

He hadn’t even been thinking before during the whole ride over, not even before that when his eyes were closed. He’d been dreaming, and even if Shepard couldn’t define the difference or solve the equation, he knew it was there. Instinct. Longing. Tight leather. Alenko dug his fingers into the grooves, hooking them under the hem, and he kissed like he wasn’t wearing a plain brown button-down sweater in the middle of doing his homework on a Friday night.

‘That was some stunt,’ Alenko said foinally. ‘You’re not trying to impress me, are you, Shepard? I could’ve let you in through the front door and everything.’

‘A little less conversation,’ Shepard replied.

Alenko obliged him—but he wasn’t being quiet or easy about it. He kissed Shepard until Shepard was breathless and then he kissed him more; Shepard didn’t think of it as kissing him again because the kissing never actually stopped anytime in there. Shepard’s hands couldn’t find the right spot on Alenko’s body—hips or back or shoulders or face or hair—to stay for good so they just went everywhere, and hoped it’d be enough. At the end, when Shepard got back to where he’d started, his hands were still empty.

He tightened his hold. Alenko did the same.

The kissing turned—deeper, slower, Alenko scrambling to slide the window shut, Shepard going for the roll-down curtain. When it caught and stayed, the room got dark, not so dark Shepard couldn’t see, but dark enough that he felt like a shadow passing over Alenko’s skin. He messed up Alenko’s hair on purpose, then tried to put it back in place.

No point in that. It didn’t work.

And Shepard knew he hadn’t been made for fixing things after he’d wrecked ‘em, since the Councilor’s hotrods didn’t count for anything.

‘Thanks for the pin,’ Shepard said. Dumb, stupid, flat. But Alenko laughed and he sounded happy, Shepard’s t-shirt untucked, riding up over his warm skin. ‘This the first time anybody’s ever snuck into your room at night, Nosebleed?’

‘Not exactly,’ Alenko replied. Shepard’s eyes opened and Alenko’s were right there, Alenko’s mouth twisting and grinning.

‘No kidding?’

‘No kidding.’ Alenko’s voice turned husky. Shepard’s gut snagged like a rusty tailpipe and Alenko was reaching straight into his engines, knocking out old parts, making even older ones run again. It started with a hum that turned into a gunned roar, Alenko pushing Shepard back against the window, knees on either side of his hips, only the cushion to soften each rock and bump that felt like falling.

Alenko’s jeans rubbed against Shepard’s, denim on denim, friction like rubber tires squealing on the blacktop. A spark in the ignition; a lighter tossed onto fuel. Shepard raked his hands through Alenko’s hair again and it was soft, real soft, compared to the hard kisses on his mouth and the hard glass at his back.

When Alenko’s fingers tightened on Shepard’s shoulders, Shepard got a good, clean look at his face: mouth twisted again, but for different reasons; hips arching, a curve in the small of his back like the sleek line of a good bike. And, sure, Shepard would’ve been the first to admit it—this had to be the ride of his life.

Only Shepard was the bike this time. Shepard was the one going fast, all full of fuel, starting to get damp inside of his briefs. Shepard was the one who kept running while Alenko shuddered, squeezing his thighs together, bowing his head over Shepard’s, bumping Shepard’s nose with his. Hot breath after ragged, hot breath.

And Shepard, who thought he’d been leading the way, followed with him.

He didn’t spend the night, but he did let Alenko take off his jacket for a while, holding each other next to the window. The shadows came from outside, not inside, one long tree branch reaching toward the glass.

‘I should go,’ Shepard said.

The sun was already coming up.

*


	10. Chapter 10

Nobody knew about the pin in Shepard’s pocket next to one of two lucky nickels—or the missing nickel, which Shepard didn’t ask Alenko if he was carrying around with him. Sometimes he caught Alenko with his hand in his own pocket, sure, and Shepard thought he recognized the instinct, needing to touch something to make sure of what you already knew. That it was actually there. That it’d always be there, small enough that you could keep the secret, that nobody else had any reason to take it from you or even care.

For two weeks, nobody knew about it. And it would’ve stayed that way if it wasn’t for Finch.

‘Hey, Shep,’ he said, tossing something bright into the air while Shepard settled a hubcap in place. Shepard saw it glitter out of the corner of his eye, through a crack in the side rear-view mirror. ‘Say, this is real cute. Might even match your eyes. So what is it, anyway? Commemorative Garrus Vakarian tie pin or something?’

Shepard patted the rubber of a new tire, measuring the shape and the texture while gauging what Finch already knew—usually not too much—against what he was looking to know—usually too much for his own good.

‘Why, you suddenly looking to be a member of the fan club?’ Shepard asked. ‘Hey, while you’re hanging around like bad news, you wanna make yourself useful for a change and pass me that wrench?’

‘You wanna tell me the truth about this _fine_ piece of flash you’re suddenly in possession of first?’ Finch replied.

Shepard pushed off the tire, turning slowly. ‘Something you wanna say to me, Finch?’

‘I’m talking. You’re the one who ain’t.’ Finch flipped the pin again, catching it one handed. Shepard’s jacket, which he’d taken off to work on the car repairs, was in his other hand. He sure was pushing it like he’d woken up on the dangerous side of the bed that morning.

‘I’m listening.’

‘ _Serrice’s Ice Cream Parlor and Shoppe_.’ Finch snorted. ‘Pretty little place you’ve got there. Pretty little friends you’ve got to match.’

‘I was casing the joint, dipstick. Looking for opportunities. Getting to know the lay of the land.’

‘Yeah, yeah, of course you were. Playing all nice and cozy to get in with the in-crowd. Sure, Shep, sure.’ There went Alenko’s pin. What went up had to come down. Shepard edged closer to the toolbox with Finch watching him. ‘…You gonna come after me, a guy you’ve known for years, over a goddamn _pin_ somebody you’ve only known for a month gave you, huh?’

‘Nah,’ Shepard said. ‘I’m gonna come after you ‘cause you’ve been tailing me, Finch.’

‘Now I get it—why you’re so hung up on your stinking privacy. Wouldn’t care about it so much if you didn’t have anything to hide.’

‘Last I checked, getting ice cream wasn’t even against Reds code.’

‘I guess it’s not.’ The pin came down again. It always would. Finch smacked it against the back of his hand, gritting his teeth when the tip of the pin must’ve hit skin, maybe even piercing it. Finch was like that. All flash, never thinking it through. Like one of Peter Pan’s lost boys, so damn happy never having to grow up. ‘Still… I’m betting you don’t want the Councilor to know about where you’ve been spending all your free time lately, do you?’

‘Somebody gonna tell him?’ Shepard asked. ‘Cause if that’s what they _were_ implying, I might have to keep their big trap shut for good.’

The scene’d played out differently in Garrus Vakarian stars in _Archangel_. But Garrus always knew how to work the tough crowds while Shepard just knew how to be tough in a crowd. There was a big, nasty difference and it was wearing Finch’s face.

‘You’ve got some messed up loyalties, Shep. Never thought I’d see the day,’ Finch said.

‘Might not get a chance to see tomorrow, at the rate you’re going.’

‘You think you can take me?’

‘I don’t think it. I _know_ it.’

‘I’d like to see you try. Going all soft, eating ice cream sundaes, riding around with a bunch of squares—when Cerberus comes after you, are _they_ gonna have your back? What about if you get into it with Assassin? Timebomb Tim? Hell, even Anderson. They’ll be first in line to testify against you, Shep. You know the type. They’re all the same.’

They weren’t. One of ‘em knew what it meant being brave, to keep hitting a hard wall without letting it break him. He was stubborn as hell just like his hair and when Shepard thought about him, about Finch following him around, his fingers balled into a tight fist.

‘Gimme that pin back, Finch.’

‘And what if I don’t?’

‘You’re gonna gimme that pin back.’

Finch snorted, then spat. Shepard knew all his moves from the first punch thrown to the last uppercut and—when Finch blinked—Shepard knew Finch knew it, too. That he didn’t have a chance. That he’d end up down for the count with Shepard all but busting his face in and for some dumb chunk of silver that was heavier than anything either of them had ever held before.

‘You’re screwing everything up, Shep,’ Finch said. ‘What’s so great about that dumb square, anyway? Guy wouldn’t give you the time of day if he knew half of what you’ve been up to. Can’t trust anybody like that. …Too many damn sweaters.’

‘Gimme the pin back, Finch,’ Shepard said again.

Finch wiped his nose with the back of his wrist, leather stiff and creaking. He stared Shepard down for longer than he’d ever had the guts for without so much as blinking, then looked away, like he didn’t care for anything he’d seen. Like there was grit in his eye or a piece of gravel or something.

‘Yeah, sure. You got it. Not gonna bleed over a dumb piece that small, anyway. Not even gold.’ Finch held it out between them and Shepard reached for it, no sudden movements, waiting for it to drop into his palm. ‘ _Almost_ don’t care,’ Finch added. ‘ _Almost_ wanna clock you just on principle.’

‘You’ve got principles?’

‘Yeah. I do. And _you_ used to have ‘em too, before you got too good for the rest of us.’

‘What do you think I’m doing right now, Finch?’ Shepard jerked his thumb to the car behind him. ‘Wiring up the Councilor’s hot property just for the hell of it?’

‘You gotta ride with us again, Shep,’ Finch said. ‘We’re getting our tires handed to us by Assassin every night while you’re off sharing straws in a milkshake. That seem like loyalty to you?’

Shepard’s stomach tightened like leather drying, cracking in the sunlight. There was no way around it. Finch was actually right for a change. Shepard could’ve used those instincts a hundred times earlier. He rubbed the pin between his thumb and forefinger. It was there, but it wasn’t a secret anymore.

‘You gotta ride with us again,’ Finch repeated. ‘’Cause right now, I’m the only one who knows about you and where you’ve been. Wouldn’t want anybody else to know about it, would you? Damn place is like Candyland. Sure, you’re having fun, but that’s all it is—right, Shep?’

‘Right,’ Shepard said.

Like one of those reflex tests, a little mallet tapping the knee. If Shepard hadn’t said that, then something would’ve been wrong with his reflexes all right.

‘So when’re we riding?’

‘Tonight. Twenty-one hundred. Assassin’s out for _blood_ , Shep. Might as well give him some of his own, if he has a taste for it.’

‘Sure. Yeah. I got you. Assassin’s easy. Can’t believe you and the rest of the boys couldn’t take him on yourself, Finch.’

Finch tossed Shepard his jacket. Shepard caught it one-handed. The nickel fell out and bounced until it hit Shepard’s toe, where it stopped. Shepard kicked it out of the way.

‘Better make sure Normandy’s ready for that kind of riding,’ Finch said.

‘Normandy doesn’t get rusty. You, maybe. But not Normandy.’ Finch still had an attitude about the whole thing and Shepard was ready to go for his ankles if he tried anything when Shepard stepped past him. But, somehow, they made it around each other, Shepard edging by on the periphery, Finch watching him the whole time.

‘You ain’t gonna bail on me to go back up the beanstalk, are you, Shep?’

‘I don’t bail on anybody,’ Shepard said.

‘You don’t go to parlors and shoppes, either. …Least, that’s what I always _thought_.’

‘Thinking’s never been for you, Finch.’ Shepard touched the diamond link fence, shaking it once with looped fingers and listening to the barbed-wire on top rattle.

‘I’m gonna get you for that, Shep,’ Finch said.

‘If you can catch me first,’ Shepard replied.

He swung out and headed for Normandy; she was waiting for him just like she always was. Shepard didn’t know what the hell to do with Alenko’s pin—give it back to him, sure, and before the race, ‘cause after it…

Nothing was gonna be the same.

If this was Garrus Vakarian stars in _Scoped and Dropped_ , Alenko would know what it meant. That Shepard was going off to war—well, kind of—and that he didn’t want to make any promises of his own or take any promises with him. It’d be long and lonely and, Shepard told himself, he was just getting a taste for it. That was all. You couldn’t have ice cream sundaes somebody else paid for every night, anyway. If anything, all that sugar was making him downright sick.

He drove for a while, then filled up on discounted gas, then dropped by Serrice’s in the back the same time Donnelly always snuck out for a quick smoke.

‘ _Jeez_ , Shepard,’ Donnelly said. ‘You trying to kill me?’

Shepard leaned over the handlebars. ‘Not this time, Donnelly. When I try, it’ll happen—you won’t even see it coming. Hey, will you give something to Alenko for me?’

‘You ever heard of a little word called ‘please’ and its best friend ‘thank you?’’

‘Guess I never got the chance to make their acquaintance.’ Shepard dropped the pin in his hand. ‘Just give it to him when you see him, all right?’

‘You oughta be giving it to him yourself.’

‘You oughta keep your nose out of somebody else’s business. …Got a smoke?’

‘Sure,’ Donnelly said. ‘One for the road, right?’ He fished his pack out of his back pocket and Shepard nabbed a cigarette without lighting it up. He kept it between his lips while he drove back to Purgatory, helping James unload the latest delivery into the back.

‘No wonder you’re so big and strong, James,’ Shepard said, around the unlit cigarette.

‘Nah,’ James replied. ‘It’s my abuela’s cooking if it’s anything, that’s what.’

Shepard had only seen her once—he’d been standing inside the world’s smallest kitchenette while an old lady who couldn’t have been over five feet tall kept asking him why he was so skinny. ‘Just helping James carry those groceries home,’ Shepard remembered saying, making a break for the door, not ready to turn his back on her just yet. He’d tussled with the likes of Timebomb Tim and Assassin. He knew danger when he saw it. ‘See you around. I’ve gotta…blow.’

Sure, it hadn’t been the Alenko kitchen. But it’d smelled like one all the same.

‘Something up, Loco?’ James asked.

‘Sure,’ Shepard said. ‘The sky, as usual, not to mention all the clouds.’

James chuckled. ‘Yeah. _Tell_ me about it. Kind of day it’s nice to know there’s home cooking waiting for you at the end of it, know what I’m saying?’

Shepard shouldered a box of flavored syrup bottles and headed inside, the muscles in his arms starting to ache. It wasn’t the good kind of ache, either. It was the old kind of ache, the kind of ache he knew.

‘See you around, James,’ Shepard said, making a break for the door.

‘You only say that when you ain’t planning on coming back, Loco,’ James replied.

But Shepard _was_ planning on coming back. It was just that coming back happened to feel exactly like leaving.

Like in a crash, his perspective was all mixed up. Sure, he’d never had the chance to go to the aquarium with Alenko, but what’d they do there, anyway? Hold hands, watch the sharks, see a few guys in wetsuits feed some dolphins that’d already forgotten about what it was like to swim in the sea? No thanks. Not Shepard’s gig, not Shepard’s MO, not Shepard’s style. It was the ocean or it was nothing, and it sure as hell wasn’t gonna be the ocean.

‘You ready?’ Finch asked. He gunned his engine.

Shepard answered him by gunning his own and all down the line, the Reds answered, until the lot was shaking like an earthquake, roaring like a circus.

Some circus. It was more like a carnival.

At least the rides were cheap—just like the thrills. Shepard’s blood was hot, fire-hot instead of hot chocolate hot, and the stink of gasoline wasn’t something he could wash off his clothes, much less his skin. He’d never tried. Alenko had stuck with wrinkling his nose. He must’ve thought he was fine with that, but it wouldn’t take long before he realized he wasn’t.

Right about now, he was probably looking at Donnelly like Donnelly had all the answers or even some of them and Donnelly was shrugging, saying something smarter than he looked—about how guys like Shepard were only in it for the short term, not the long haul. And he was right. Shepard was doing up his jacket, revving an engine that needed to go fast or die still.

A shark had to keep swimming. The color of blood was the price of loyalty.

It all sounded good, Shepard’s life like a frame around the main feature, driving straight across the screen.

*

Shepard saw Timebomb Tim’s cigarette first before anything else showed up on the horizon along the racing canals. Cerberus’s taillights had all been shut off, welcoming the Reds into the darkness—but there, in the distance, was the single burn of red and orange when Timebomb took a drag. The round tip lit up like a stop light.

Shepard stepped on the gas.

‘You Reds don’t enjoy being on time for anything, do you?’ Timebomb Tim asked, Shepard’s pack pulling up behind him in a V-formation. V for victory, Shepard thought; when Timebomb Tim took another drag, his eyes  reflected the burn like he was thinking something else. V for vengeance.

Vanity or… Or vanguard.

‘Almost thought you were going to be too—now, let’s see, what’s the best word for it…’ Timebomb Tim’s mouth was full of pale white smoke, snaking past his lips. ‘Well, I guess the only thing to call it is _chicken_ —right, Shepard?’

Shepard cut his engine. ‘Anybody got a smoke?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, Shep. I got one for you.’ Finch was right there, holding a stick up to Shepard’s lips. All Shepard had in his pocket was a nickel and a lighter. He lifted the lighter out and raised it, waiting for the burn and the smoke that’d match Timebomb Tim’s.

‘Can’t say a guy’s chicken when you’re not in the race, Timebomb,’ Shepard said. ‘Some of us lead by example. But hey, don’t sweat it. There’s gotta be somebody on the sidelines. It’d get too crowded any other way, if all of us were actually riding.’

Timebomb almost smiled around his cigarette butt. He’d put on a fancy suit for the occasion and everything, lapel tucked in neat, a sweet canary yellow handkerchief in his front pocket. ‘You ever eaten words before, Shepard?’

‘Do they come on a hamburger?’

‘Well, I’ll tell you this—they have a bitter aftertaste. No matter how you try to choke them down, they’re always…hard to swallow.’

‘You tired of jumping when your master tells you to jump?’ Shepard asked Assassin, one of Assassin’s gloved hands resting on the handlebar of his black-and-blue motorcycle. The same colors he liked leaving everybody else. ‘Or is the only phrase you know _How high?_ ’

‘I could ask you the same thing, Shepard,’ Assassin replied.

Finch snorted, hanging out somewhere over Shepard’s shoulder. All the Reds were there, riding on his tailpipe, hoisted on his back. But if Shepard thought of it like that, the extra weight’d only slow him down.

He shrugged it off. ‘We could stand here flapping our gums all day until the heat crashes the party,’ Shepard said, ‘or we could make our own heat. Your call, Assassin.’

The Cerberus boys all started jeering. The Reds gave as good as they got in return, a low whisper that rose to a hiss between clenched teeth. It couldn’t be as loud as it needed to be; even if the place was practically no-man’s land, a makeshift track circling an abandoned quarry, there was no telling where Anderson’d be or who might’ve tipped him off to the races happening that night. They’d seen crazier raids happen than on a bike race, and nobody knew what Timebomb Tim was keeping in the trunk of his Cadillac that’d get them all locked up in the clink for life.

Shepard flipped the collar on his jacket to his chin, circling Normandy around nice and steady and slow. Finch and some Cerberus mook headed off to the end of the track, taillights winking through the darkness, weaving in and out of the old stanchions. Shepard didn’t look to the side. Sure, his back felt bare and cold when the wind picked up—nobody was riding with him, after all, just these hopes and dreams that didn’t weigh a thing if you kicked ‘em to the curb.

And that was how it had to be. Alenko’d only held him back by holding onto him, slowing Shepard’s natural speed down to a dull crawl.

He didn’t need the pin for luck. He made his own, heads or tails.

Shepard spat the butt of his cigarette to the side and Assassin pulled forward, tire squealing straight over it. When they got to the start of the track they eased into a full stop, getting the lay of the land.

Shepard knew the course like the back of his hand. It’d been a part of him for years, just like Gastown and Purgatory and the music wailing, the sirens fading, raids hitting and everybody packing up into the basement while Anderson’s footsteps pounded overhead. If the heat couldn’t fire Shepard up, nobody could.

Not Alenko’s mouth. Not Alenko’s hands. Not the sunlight in Alenko’s eyes or the cold rain on his lips, the cherry he took but only once Shepard said _sure,_ he didn’t mind. What the hell was Shepard supposed to do with a cherry, anyway?

Rain. Shepard could feel it building. Stormclouds in the distance; sirens wailing in some other part of town. None of it could touch them. You had to be running from something in order to run in the first place. Assassin gunned his engine and Shepard did the same. Sharks didn’t roar, but lions did, even in their cages. They didn’t forget how. They didn’t give each other pins or share what they were eating, _sure, we don’t mind_. They had claws and they knew how to use them. Always.

Assassin treated his bike the same way he treated everything else. There was no way, no damn way he could win this thing. Pressure built in the air along with heat and humidity. It smelled like gasoline and cigarette smoke. Just one spark and the whole thing could go up in flames—but then the storm would really start, water to douse to fire. Nothing lasted because nothing could burn forever.

Eventually, it burned up or burned out. Somebody crushed it under their heel, their tire, switching off their headlights.

Shepard flicked his headlights on. They ran like a single spotlight along the gravel in front of him, but the beam only stretched so far. All he had to do was chase that light. It’d keep moving ahead of him and he’d keep moving after it until in the end, he’d left everybody behind who thought they knew his name.

_Three_.

Shepard squeezed his thighs against Normandy’s side, remembering what it felt like having somebody do the same to him. Maybe it’d be easier to keep running when there was somebody to fill you up all the time at the gas station, on gasoline they even paid for sometimes. To be made out of metal pieces, touched gently, reverently, never vulnerable but always, somehow, naked.

_Two_.

Garrus Vakarian rode a motorcycle, too. Anybody who read a magazine now and then knew that. Shepard picked them up, crumpled but not too shabby, after they were left on the floor at Purgatory, when James was sweeping up after a long night turned to morning, and they read the news items together, laughing over how weird it’d be if Garrus and teen sensation Liara T’Soni really _were_ seeing each other like the gossip columns said.

_One._

The only number Shepard knew. First it’d been three—Kaidan and Shepard and Normandy, riding hard, going nowhere. Then it was two—Shepard on Normandy, getting the hell out of Candyland before the locals turned him into a gingerbread man. And now it was one, nobody else in the world but Shepard, the loneliest guy who ever lived and breathed, still telling himself there was no point in running to anything.

_Go_.

Assassin moved fast; sometimes he even jumped the gun.

Shepard moved faster, and he didn’t have to cheat to get there.

Part of it had to do with Normandy; credit where credit was due. Wet wind slapped Shepard’s face, not raining yet, but sticky and thick. Smoke got in Shepard’s lungs, motor oil in his mouth and gasoline on the back of his tongue. The engine roared. Assassin pulled out ahead and Shepard let him have his moment of fun before trusting Normandy to do what she did best.

Go, and go, and keep going, and never stop, not even once they saw the sun.

Asphalt torn up under the rubber, burning, screaming even, like the Reds when they won another round. Shepard flew so fast that his face stung, his eyes watering, his fingers cramping, only none of that mattered. He knew what it felt like to have Alenko on top of him, leaning over him, bunching the fabric of his t-shirt in tight hands, and how Alenko shuddered like a motorcycle running on empty when he came. Little, short bursts of air gasping through his throat while he tried to remember how to breathe. And Shepard knew what it felt like to spit out a molar, sticky with blood, bunching his bruised knuckles and taking pain from wherever it wanted to come.

Hell, even Candyland was full of assassins.

Shepard’s might’ve been bent low over the handlebars, pushing a pretty little thing farther than it could go, just to keep pace—but at the same time, Assassin kept losing ground.

Shepard heard Assassin’s tires start squealing like the rubber had all but torn to shreds. He pulled out ahead, inch by inch, gaining speed faster and faster until he saw Finch’s flashlight up ahead on one side, another spotlight just waiting for Shepard to take center stage. Assassin moved up. Shepard moved up again. The distance closed and opened like some kind of accordion and the music it played was music to Shepard’s stinging ears.

Sure, Assassin could be any kind of storm he wanted to be. But Shepard was always gonna be a whirlwind. A tornado.

Normandy edged Assassin out by a few inches. She always did have more fun with a close race. Finch swung the flashlight up in the air with a whoop and it arced in a full half-circle.

What went up had to come down.

Assassin skidded forward, swirling in another half-circle, almost flying out of control before he put his foot down and used the extra friction like a brake. Sparks flew, not just behind Shepard’s eyes. Assassin reached for the pocket knife he kept under his belt, flipping it open with a snap. Finch shouted, but the sound cut off without warning as the Cerberus bruiser with him knocked him to the ground.

He held onto his flashlight, at least, turning it on and off in rapid succession, a single beam shooting straight up to the sky. A distress signal—to let the rest of the Reds know there was foul playing going on, and as soon as they figured it out, all hell would be breaking loose.

It showed up late, but what it lacked in timeliness it made up for in always being there.

Always.

Shepard didn’t have the time to worry about Finch. Assassin moved too quickly for that and he had a knife and the darkness to his advantage. Shepard heard Finch’s flashlight get knocked out of his hand, a punch thrown, connecting with a crunch, followed by an _oof_.

Garrus Vakarian might’ve done all his own stunts but the sound guys never got the noises right. The grunts. The wet splatters. Flesh and bone. Muscle giving way under knuckles. The skittering sound of a potential weapon as it rolled away from your fingertips along the pavement. As high ground turned to low ground. As the element of surprise up and disappeared.

Assassin was behind Shepard in a flash—half a flash, even, and Shepard ducked away from his swing just in time.

Good thing he didn’t go in for the pompadour style. If he had, the whole top would’ve been sliced clean off.

Fighting Assassin in a crowded room had its perks and its drawbacks. But fighting him alone while the nearest skirmish was a bike-race away—that asked for different tactics. Assassin wasn’t kidding around and neither was that pig sticker of his. Shepard had seen more than one of the Reds come back from the wrong end of Assassin’s blade and it sang as it sliced through the air, promising to slice through Shepard just as smooth as if he’d been a pat of butter at a Sunday supper.

But Shepard never did anything that easy.

He caught Assassin at the elbow during his second swing. That left him open to Assassin’s fist, of course, which connected with Shepard’s cheek, and to a wide kick, Assassin’s knee cracking against Shepard’s ribs. It kept Assassin’s knife in Shepard’s control, though, and that was all Shepard needed, snapping Assassin’s wrist and swinging him around, both of their shoes scuffling over pavement, until Shepard pried the pocketknife loose and it clattered to the ground. Shepard kicked it away, listening to it slithering far from the center of the fight, then brought his elbow back into Assassin’s stomach, right below and between the ribcage. Winded, Assassin stumbled.

They both went down a second later, legs tangled up at the ankles, Shepard’s ears ringing as his head hit concrete. Something broke under him. Hopefully, that something was Assassin.

It was a battle for who came out on top after that, rolling around and around like a coin spinning across an ice cream shoppe’s clean table. Nothing to slow them down. No brakes in sight, only pure friction met with pure speed. Shepard on the bottom, Assassin on the bottom, wild punches landing and missing the mark. Kind of like a race, one of them pulling ahead, the other one gaining ground, and nobody knowing the outcome until they crossed the finish line.

Then, blood in Shepard’s mouth and maybe in his eyes, tasting and seeing and hearing nothing _but_ blood, he heard the sirens. Bright lights flooded on them from all angles like the old canal-ways were a theater and they’d stumbled into the grand finale. Spotlights everywhere—police car headlights this time.

Through a pink haze covering one squinty eye, Shepard could already see Timebomb Tim’s Cadillac speeding away.

Tenth Street Reds and Cerberus, duking it out for who had the hardest heads, if not the least scrambled brains, froze like shadows on a wall. Footsteps scattered like lost flashlights, lost knives.

Finch freed himself from the headlock he was in with a well-timed kick and bolted—not toward Shepard but back in the direction of his bike. Smart kid, Finch. Always had been. When push came to shove, Shepard could see it all happen: that Cerberus scattered just like the Reds did. Or the Reds scattered just like Cerberus.

Either way, it didn’t matter now.

Shepard watched as Finch got cornered by two cars, boxed in against a wall. One Cerberus bike moved so fast it rolled over, nearly executing a perfect flip front wheel over back. Upside-down and topsy-turvy. The whole damn circus had gone crazy.

Anderson’s voice followed, distorted through one of those police-issue megaphones made just so small people could sound bigger than they were. ‘Run, and you make all this harder on yourself, boys,’ Anderson said. His words crackled, speakers off, then on again. ‘We have your ringleader Councilor Udina in custody already. If you come in nice and easy, nobody has to get hurt tonight.’

The sirens, Shepard realized. They’d stopped. The lights in the bay glittered in the distance.

Finch sure had picked a bad time for racing. Some guys had luck and some guys had the other thing.

Shepard eased up his clutch on the handlebar. Anderson himself got out of the squad car and headed down the steep incline, closing in on Shepard from above.

‘Looks like you’ve got more sense than some of your friends,’ Anderson said. A guy with no nickname. Now there was something Shepard hadn’t seen much of. ‘But the same amount of blood as the rest of them anyway. You know your rights, kid?’

‘Sure I do. But we’ve never been properly introduced,’ Shepard replied.

For a second, it almost looked like Anderson was about to smile. But it turned out that was nothing more than a trick of the light, the way a spinning coin looked like it took up more space than when it was still again.

‘Hands on your head and turn around nice and slow. Nobody has to get hurt tonight—so stay quiet and try not to be a smartass.’

‘It just comes so natural to me,’ Shepard said. ‘Say, you get a mean looking greaser with a blue and black bike?’

‘Sure did. Wouldn’t go home without my matching set, after all. Turns out that punk had a knife on him—now, I won’t be finding any weapons like that on you, will I?’

Shepard let the cuffs slide on, cold around his wrists, leather creaking around his raised arms and pulled tight at the elbows. His ribs hurt.

At least his luck had turned with Assassin’s.

Anderson loaded Shepard into the back seat of his squad car personally, where Finch was already cuffed up and waiting, blood running down his chin from a split bottom lip, left eye already swelling shut. ‘Next time I listen to you, Finch,’ Shepard said, ‘I’m gonna kick my own ass personally.’

‘Then mine?’ Finch asked.

Shepard stared at Anderson in the rearview mirror. ‘Yeah, Finch. You got that right.’

*


	11. Chapter 11

  
  
by [Crowthis](http://crowthis.tumblr.com)  


Shepard had memorized the stains on the ceiling by the time James showed up. Shepard didn’t look away from the biggest, brownest one, stretching from one corner to the other—slicing the ceiling into two triangles like a fancy picnic sandwich.

‘So somebody squealed on us, huh?’ Shepard asked.

‘They caught the Councilor taking bribes, actually. The way I hear it, Anderson took him down without much of a fight.’ James rubbed the back of his neck, just idle motion in Shepard’s periphery. ‘Some of your boys are getting off for testifying about what they know—the way I hear it, that is.’

‘And what about you, James?’

‘Me?’ James chuckled. ‘Just looking to get another job, Loco. Something to pay the rent. You know I can’t clean up Purgatory if there _is_ no Purgatory.’

‘You better have a metal file hidden on you somewhere, James.’

‘Can’t say that I do. I’m all outta those.’

‘Came to eyeball the show then, huh? Tell all the kids on the block back home about the crazy things you’ve seen?’

‘Now, Loco… You know that ain’t fair.’

‘Yeah.’ Shepard did. ‘But life ain’t fair, James. _I’m_ not fair.’

‘Maybe. Sure, I’d believe it,’ James said. ‘Sometimes, though…’

‘Jeez, Shepard,’ another voice said, familiar enough to make Shepard turn around. ‘That’s some shiner you’ve got there.’

The movement hurt Shepard’s ribs—that was his official story, and he was sticking to it. The pain was real and it had nothing to do with the way Alenko looked in the middle of the slammer, wearing one of a thousand and one sweaters, all of them telling the same story every night Shepard saw him. Only this one was different, a movie that didn’t have any kind of ending Shepard wanted to stick around for.

Too bad he was behind bars and couldn’t make a break for it.

‘Don’t blame James,’ Alenko added. ‘I… I went down to Purgatory myself. Took Conrad’s car, even. Figured I’d get it back to him right away, only there were all these cops…’

‘You gonna be polite, Loco?’ James asked.

Shepard snorted.

James crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head. ‘Thought so. My abuela’d get manners into you so fast you’d be seeing double for _weeks._ One of these days, Loco… You’re coming over. You need it. Too damn skinny, yeah, but too damn _stubborn_ on top of that, and there ain’t too many people in town who know how to cure something like that.’

‘Thanks for bringing me around, James,’ Alenko said. ‘I owe you one.’

‘Anytime, Vanilla. You give him as good as you get, you hear me?’

‘Yeah. Loud and clear.’

James shuffled out. He might’ve been a traitor, but he wasn’t a rat. Shepard stared at a scuff-mark on the wall over Alenko’s shoulder instead of at his face—which wore disappointment like a fancy sweater, right out there for everybody to see.

Well, Shepard wasn’t gonna look at it. If he didn’t, then he didn’t have to see it. And Alenko could be as disappointed as he liked without involving Shepard in any of it.

‘Shepard,’ Alenko said. He stepped closer to the bars until Shepard was staring at his shoulder, until he was all Shepard _could_ see. ‘Lemme take a look at that black-eye, would you?’

‘You can get a look at it just fine from where you’re standing. Bars between us. Hey, it’s almost like a Saturday afternoon at the zoo for you, right? Hope you brought some popcorn.’

‘Jeez, Shepard,’ Alenko said again. This time, he shook his head. His hair all neat, his mouth all soft, and Shepard sitting in lockup with one broken rib and a couple of bruised ones.

The second Shepard moved, Alenko’d get all sorry for him and no mistake. The last thing Shepard needed was to have Alenko sticking around on account of the milk of human kindness and not because he wanted to.

And he didn’t belong in the clink. What he was wearing made that obvious enough.

‘Jeez, Nosebleed,’ Shepard replied.

‘You know, you keep calling me that…’ The toe of Alenko’s white runner bumped one of the cell bars. ‘…but you’re the one always getting the nosebleeds in the first place.’ Alenko wrapped his fingers around the same bar. ‘You ever wonder why that is? Like maybe you should be Nosebleed?’

‘And who’d that make you?’ Shepard asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Alenko bowed his head. Shepard didn’t have to see it to know exactly the kind of expression he had on, crisscrossed by the lines of the bars, cut up into pieces by a knife Shepard didn’t have to pull out to get the job done. ‘You’re right. You’re just Shepard, this guy I met by accident. Not knowing what I was getting myself into at the time, sure, and maybe I’m kookie like you say. But I think… I think you’re kookie too, Shepard.’

Alenko was lucky he hadn’t followed Shepard all the way to the canals and the racing track. He’d’ve been part of that fight on Shepard’s account, and just because he was all sweet-natured and good-looking and had big eyes and a twisty mouth didn’t mean a guy like Assassin or Timebomb Tim or anybody running for Cerberus would’ve blinked at him twice before messing up his cute face.

A bruise could heal. Something that cut deeper might just leave a scar.

The best of those, you kept inside. Where nobody could see ‘em. Where nobody could ask you, _Where’d you get that, anyway?_

Alenko’s fingers curved around the bar before he let go, slipping his hand between two of them, all the way to the elbow. ‘Lemme see it,’ Alenko said.

‘Not on your life, Nosebleed.’

‘You know, it’s one thing being stubborn, Shepard. It’s another thing being so proud you run over your own foot while making a getaway.’

‘You hear that line in a movie?’

Alenko didn’t answer for a long, long time. ‘…Garrus Vakarian stars in _Last Calibration_ ,’ he admitted finally. ‘That doesn’t make it any less true. For a guy who’d live and die by the Garrus Vakarian code…’

‘I’d live and die all right,’ Shepard replied. ‘But it’s the Reds’ code I follow, not anybody else’s. The Reds and me—we’re one and the same.’

‘Okay,’ Alenko said. ‘I guess that’s it. I guess you proved your point.’

‘You gonna make like a tree and leave?’

‘I’m gonna make like a piece of gum and stick around, actually.’ Alenko shook his head, his hand still outstretched. ‘They oughta take a look at you before they throw you in here like that. Might get an infection.’

‘You know why they don’t?’

‘Cause there’s about twenty-five of you in lockup right now and they don’t have the time?’

‘Cause they don’t care,’ Shepard said. ‘Because to them, I’m nobody. Not even a name in a file they stamp without looking at it. Life isn’t a root beer float, Alenko. It’s not all peaches and cream after church on Sunday.’

‘I know what it’s not,’ Alenko replied. ‘I just don’t think I know what it is yet, either. And that’s what I’m trying to figure out.’

‘Save it for somebody else.’

‘Why’d you give back the pin, Shepard?’ Alenko asked.

Shepard snorted and used the distraction to shift in place without wincing and making it too damn obvious about the busted rib. The rest of him was numb—if Assassin thought he’d managed to get a few good knocks in before Anderson and the rest of the heat showed up, then he needed to think again. Shepard barely felt it.

‘I thought we were having a pretty good time,’ Alenko continued, voice getting husky like they were on the windowsill, kissing against a cool glass windowpane, rattling it in the frame as much as the oak tree branch outside swaying, back and forth, in the wind. ‘The way things were going…’

‘Knock it off, Nosebleed. I was just having some fun, Nosebleed. You ever taken something out for a test drive without planning on buying it?’

‘You gonna be surprised when I tell you I haven’t?’

‘Of course you haven’t. And _that’s_ why you’re the Nosebleed and I’m not.’

Anybody else would’ve clocked Shepard one by now—rattling the bars, trying to get at him for being such a piece of work. But Alenko wasn’t like that. Never had been. Never would be. No matter how a guy like Shepard taunted him, he didn’t take the bait. Not everybody could do a thing like that. Finch was one of the not-everybody’s, for example. Even Timebomb Tim lost his cool more often than Alenko did.

‘You’re not a real jerk, Shepard,’ Alenko said. ‘You just play one for the big screen.’

‘Well, the show’s over now, Nosebleed,’ Shepard replied. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, the star’s all tied up. You’re just gonna have to get your fix of adventure someplace else.’

‘You’re not planning on testifying, huh?’

‘No way. Snitches get stitches.’

‘…I always thought it was ‘wind up in ditches.’’

‘Must’ve been watching the wrong movies, then.’ The pain in Shepard’s chest was starting to pulse, quicker and sharper than ever. He held back on making a face, but his patience was wearing thin and breathing kept getting harder.

He’d been through worse.

…Just not while Alenko was yapping at him.

‘Well, I’ve got two tickets to the drive-in right here,’ Alenko said. ‘And I’m not using them with anybody else. I’m not giving you back your nickel, either. And if I _was_ planning on it, I wouldn’t leave it with James and leave you in the dust.’

‘That’s what I do, Nosebleed. I haul ass.’

‘Sure, sure. But you show up sometimes and you kiss like you mean it,’ Alenko said.

Man, he was stubborn. In another life, he would’ve done pretty well for himself in the Reds.

Maybe it was the pain in Shepard’s chest, the busted ribs—or the way Alenko’s voice almost cracked—but Shepard made his first mistake of the night. He lifted his head and his eyes at the same time and saw, without being ready for it, Alenko’s face. His eyes past the bars. His hand still outstretched. Like being stubborn was the same thing as being brave—which Shepard had already proved it wasn’t.

‘Why won’t you just get outta here, Alenko?’ Shepard asked.

Alenko’s mouth twisted like Shepard had told him everything he wanted or needed to hear.

Shepard had called him _Alenko._

‘Quit acting like I’m doing you any favors,’ Shepard added.

‘Only when you quit acting like your rib’s not giving you hell,’ Alenko replied.

‘You’re giving me hell. Worse than a busted rib.’

‘So is that why you’re doing everything you can to ignore me too?’ Alenko didn’t shake the bars. Shepard would’ve, maybe, or maybe he knew when to be stubborn, what would shift or break if he shook hard enough as opposed to what wouldn’t budge. ‘I’m not just a broken rib, Shepard. I’m not gonna let you ignore me like that.’

‘It’s not broken,’ Shepard said. He blinked once, long and slow and playing it cool, giving himself a chance to breathe. When he opened his eyes again, the stains on the ceiling were still there, ragged and uneven and exactly like he remembered them, cutting the flaking white plaster into two sides. A right side, closer to the bars, and a wrong side, tucked against the far wall, which nestled alongside a cot that smelled like bleach. ‘It’s just…pulled a little, that’s all.’

‘You know why I won’t get outta here, Shepard,’ Alenko said.

Shepard knew. ‘’Cause nosebleeds don’t know when to quit.’

‘That’s not it.’ Alenko leaned farther against the bars. ‘More like… ‘Cause some part of me’s broken and I can’t move without you.’

‘Stick with me, it’s not gonna heal any other way but crooked.’

‘Won’t heal at all if I _don’t_ stick with you.’

Shepard felt his nose start to bleed, a hot trickle curving from his top lip to the bottom. Alenko’s lips were parted, even hopeful—but Alenko also knew what hope was, which was sadder than it felt, always sad because it slowed down and stopped spinning soon enough. Like an ice cream sundae or a Sunday night before school the next morning, it was what it was because it couldn’t last.

Alenko chewed his twisty bottom lip, then swallowed—but he didn’t look away and he didn’t let go of the bars. If Shepard didn’t want to show off just how much better Assassin was at beating a guy up than he was at winning drag races, he was going to have to move slow. Shepard eased one leg over the edge of the cot and pushed off, gaining ground the way Normandy gained momentum. Finally, he was at the bars, fingers covering Alenko’s fingers, one of them on either side of the cell.

Depending on where you were looking from, Shepard almost thought, you couldn’t tell which one of them was behind bars and which one of them was in front of them.

But that was a crock of bull and Shepard wasn’t so stupid he didn’t know it. He didn’t have to go to school all day for that one, either.

Alenko rubbed Shepard’s knuckles with his thumb. They were bruised and cracked but Alenko was gentle, gentler than he was about kissing, careful of the spots where it hurt the most.

‘I’m gonna get a first aid kit in here, that’s what,’ Alenko said. ‘See if I can’t do something about that eye.’

‘Bet James has something on him. He always does.’

‘Okay,’ Alenko said. ‘Don’t go anywhere.’

Shepard shook one of the bars between them. ‘Alenko,’ he said, ‘where exactly am I gonna go?’

‘Oh yeah.’ Alenko’s mouth twisted. He leaned in real close, too close, a heat he couldn’t handle, and Shepard was the fire. ‘You’re an escape artist, though. A regular Houdini. You’re always making like…like a Shepard and heading someplace else.’

‘Looks to me like I’m stalled right now,’ Shepard said. ‘Know anywhere I can get some gasoline for a discount?’

Alenko was there, ready and waiting, lips parting. He’d done all the kissing before, those brief, curious offerings, closing the distance between their bodies and coming at Shepard from an angle, different every time, somehow taking Shepard down from underneath. But he couldn’t get any closer this time and it was up to Shepard now—to lean in and let his mouth cover Alenko’s the way Alenko’s thumb had covered Shepard’s bruised knuckles.

The metal bars pressed, cold, into Shepard’s cheeks, one on either side. He kissed Alenko and it wasn’t easy. Nobody kicked him in the middle of it or drew a knife but he was still in pain when it ended, short of breath, ribs stinging, heart racing against the bone.

‘Okay,’ Alenko said. He patted Shepard’s side, tugging at a wrinkle of black leather at Shepard’s side. ‘I’ll be back.’

‘There’s blood on your mouth,’ Shepard replied.

Alenko touched it. Now there was blood on his hands. All Shepard knew how to do was stain him up, to leave him ripped and bloody at the end of the night. And the worst part was knowing he kept coming back for more. That Alenko might’ve been making the wrong decision based on only thinking he could handle himself—hoping he could handle Shepard.

How long would that last?

Not long enough.

‘Yeah,’ Alenko said. ‘And there’s a pin in your pocket. …Don’t say I never gave you anything, Shepard.’

Shepard leaned against the bars, listening to Alenko’s muted footsteps pad away down the hall. If he wanted a first aid kit, he was gonna get one, and he wouldn’t be back until he had it in his hands.

When Shepard got out, the first thing he’d do would be to have some ice cream at Serrice’s.

The second thing he’d do would be to kick James’s ass—just a little bit—for being so damn helpful all the time.

_Anytime, Loco_ , he could practically hear James saying, warmed by the hint of a cheeky grin.

*

Finch didn’t snitch, not even with the pressure they put on him. And as long as Finch hadn’t cracked, Shepard couldn’t let himself do it, either.

Daily meetings with Anderson, records shoved in front of him on the table—and nobody getting angry. Nobody shouting.

That might’ve been the strangest part.

Anderson didn’t break chairs or get in Shepard’s face; he was a different archetype, the hard-nosed schoolteacher from one of Garrus’s flicks or the old soldier in the war who always died before the end, who only smiled once the whole movie long. And, because of how rare it was, the smile actually meant something.

Shepard kept waiting for the crash. _We know what you did at Akuze Correctional_ , Anderson would say. _No more good cop routine from me, Shepard. And I’m not bringing the bad cop in because I_ am _the bad cop, you dig?_

No dice. No deal. No details. Anderson shook his head and Shepard cleaned bathrooms, scrubbed walls, mopped empty cells, taking labor shifts that kept his hands busy and his dreams empty, bleaching his fingertips until the idea of seeing blood on his palms almost seemed crazy.

Finch had managed to get in four cigarettes on the day Udina was sentenced. They smoked in the library out an open vent, listening to a transistor radio Shepard had for good behavior.

The rest of the boys got their sentences a week later. It made Shepard think like he was living on the straight and narrow, with a time card for punching in and everything.

‘You’re a hard worker, Shepard,’ Anderson said. ‘This kind of attitude could take you farther than you know. If you keep your head down, keep your eyes open, keep your mouth shut…well, I think you might just get out of here before Christmas.’

‘Thanks, Santa,’ Shepard said. ‘Tell Mrs. Claus and the elves I said hey.’

Anderson’s smile wasn’t as rare as the one in the movies. Now and then, Shepard thought he saw it happen, and since there wasn’t much light in lock-up, it might’ve been the real deal after all.

December thirteenth came on a Friday. Finch had to be a smartass about it and Shepard would’ve shown him what for, only he hadn’t punched anybody in six weeks and six days.

He was going for lucky number seven.

‘Shepard,’ Anderson said as Shepard sat down across the table.

‘Captain,’ Shepard replied.

Anderson cleared his throat. ‘Detective, actually. Just got a promotion for the Udina business.’

‘If I’d’a known, I might’ve baked you a cake.’

‘Not on my diet, anyway. You ready to re-enter society, Shepard?’

Shepard’s fingers itched for a coin to spin—or toss. Heads he was in; tails, he needed to rough somebody up.

How many times had he sat in the lot during lunch hour telling himself how easy it’d be to hop the fence, how he’d move fast enough that none of the guards could catch him before he was going, going, gone? And how many times had he pictured showing up at Alenko’s window afterward, tossing pebbles at the glass, only to realize Alenko was watching him sadly, rolling his windowshade down with a shake of his head, leaving Shepard alone with a handful of rocks and no more hope?

‘What’s it like, being such an optimist?’ Shepard asked.

Anderson rested his palms against the back of his chair. He didn’t look so big from up close. Movie stars might’ve been the same way, when they were more than a name stuck in your head and an idea you wanted to keep. ‘Now, I don’t know—what’s it like being the other thing? You ever get tired, kid?’

Shepard spent the night smoking, not sleeping, sleeves rolled up with a matchbox tucked into the folds of fabric cinched above his right elbow.

It was James who came by the day Shepard was released, with a recommendation for a gas-station job from Anderson and everything. A chance to rehabilitate, become a functioning part of society. He’d have to walk to work, the same as everybody else who thought nine pm was bedtime and nine am was sleeping in late. All Shepard needed were the buttons made out of icing and to see the world through rose-colored gumdrops and he’d be all set.

‘Now hey there, Loco,’ James said. ‘You look like you need a ride someplace.’

Shepard squinted at the sky through the kind of crisp, clear cold that cut all the way to the bone like a dumb punk’s hidden pocket knife.

James tossed Shepard his jacket. The stiff leather’d missed him and Shepard had missed it right back. He put it on, smoothing his hair off his face. After the buzz-cut they’d given him in lockup, it was finally starting to grow in again just the way he liked it.

‘ _Hey_ , Loco,’ James said.

‘You got something to say, you oughta say it.’

‘Hold your horses, Loco. I’m getting to it.’

Shepard held his horses. James shook his head.

‘All right, but you don’t gotta give me that look. It just so happens my abuela’s making those huevos rancheros of hers for dinner tonight, and I need a ride back to my place. How about we kill two birds with one stone?’

There, in the parking lot, between two white-and-blue cop cars with the sirens on top, was Normandy. She looked as good as she ever did—not as good as new, but as good as Shepard knew her.

Being fresh out of the box, not knowing how to take a hit, wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

‘You’re just angling for a ride on my girl, is that it, James?’ Shepard asked.

‘Why—is it finally working?’

‘Gotta work on your—what’s the word? Subtlety.’

‘And you’ve gotta work on talking nice to people. You know, I got myself a sweet little job at Serrice’s?’ James asked as Shepard ran his fingers over Normandy’s handlebars, adjusting one of her headlights, easing in over the leather seat. Being back on her, he couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t been, although they’d both been missing each other for weeks, heads separated from tails, two sides of the same coin that weren’t worth a thing one without the other. ‘Pays twice what Purgatory did, _and_ closing shift’s something that happens to _other_ people, sometimes.’

‘Donnelly’s a pain in the ass, though.’

James hopped on, whistling. ‘Wait a sec, Loco—you know Donnelly?’

‘As far as I can throw him,’ Shepard replied.

Then, without waiting to shoot the shit, without letting anything get between him and his baby and the blacktop, Shepard took James home. It wasn’t Candyland—but it wasn’t Gastown, either. And all along the way, Shepard didn’t hit a single red light, the pin Alenko’d slipped back in his pocket the morning after Shepard landed in jail bumping an old, worn nickel with the tails side almost rubbed down to nothing at all.

*


	12. EPILOGUE

Shepard quit the gas station gig three days after it started. Somehow, gas kept going missing, and Shepard wasn’t sorry for a second to see the uniform go.

The easy access to free gasoline, though… _That_ he might stay up some nights thinking about, reminiscing about the good old days.

All three of them in total.

‘That must be some kind of record,’ Alenko said. ‘Say, I think I heard Donnelly talking about needing some kind of delivery boy. I mean, if you think you’re fast enough for the job.’

He hopped on Normandy and put his soft, sweatered arms around Shepard’s waist, resting his cheek on the leather. But the thing about Alenko was, he never closed his eyes, no matter how fast Shepard went.

‘Just what I need,’ Shepard said. ‘Donnelly for a boss. Like that won’t make his head swell up like a balloon ready to burst.’

‘And you’ll be there waiting to burst it—right, Shepard?’ Alenko asked.

By the corner of Never Never Land and the Big Rock Candy Mountain, under the old oak tree, Alenko got off and grabbed Shepard’s collar and pulled him close for a kiss nobody else could see.  It was theirs, the only thing Shepard knew for sure, his fingers at the small of Alenko’s back rubbing a stretch of fuzzy sweater.

‘So when’s the next time your folks are going on a trip?’ Shepard asked.

Alenko shrugged, up on his toes, going for the corner of Shepard’s mouth. And, when Shepard least expected it, he shifted to a full-on kiss, bright as getting trapped in the headlights. He was really something, that Alenko. A nosebleed to end all nosebleeds.

Shepard kissed him back.

‘Not for a while,’ Alenko said. ‘And Mom’s got pretty sharp ears, too. Always hears a pin drop from a mile away.’

Or a guy who wasn’t supposed to be there dropping in from a tree-branch, the window rattling while her son kissed him up against it, Shepard figured.

‘See you Saturday night?’ Alenko added.

‘If I don’t kill Donnelly first.’

‘Why would you wanna do a thing like that? Donnelly makes the best root beer float I ever had.’

‘Guess I’ll just rough him up a little, then.’

‘Get outta here, Shepard,’ Alenko said.

Shepard did—not because Alenko told him to, but because it was what he wanted to do. He rode for a long time, all the way back to Gastown, leaving Normandy in the old lot and climbing the fire escape to his favorite window. One of these days, when the weather wasn’t so damn cold, he might just let Alenko follow along—‘cause he did that without asking where they were going, just holding onto Shepard’s waist for the ride, rubbing the buttons down the front of Shepard’s jacket, never sticking his hands into Shepard’s pockets without permission. They could lie flat on the roof together, the same way Shepard did in the summer, watching the smog roll like clouds across the stars.

Sure, it was dirty up there. Shepard wasn’t about to go cleaning it for anybody, either. But Alenko had plenty of sweaters and Shepard knew better now than to try and stop a nosebleed when he felt like streaking motor oil over his sleeves after digging around under the front hood to find a faulty carburetor.

‘You know, Shepard,’ he said once, elbows on metal, sleeves rolled up as high as they’d go, ‘you could do something like this for a living. Fix cars so they rode as fast as they looked.’

Shepard leaned him back against the hood of the car. It rumbled and purred just like Alenko did.

Without the light shining from Purgatory’s revolving sign, Shepard could see the sky more easily. Nothing too bright on the ground, distracting the eyes when all they wanted was to stare at the stars.

Shepard reached into his pocket and tugged out an old pin, flipping it around a few times in his palm. No heads, no tails. Only a pointy side and a flat one. Moonlight glinted off the surface and, finally, Shepard stuck the sharp tip straight through his leather lapel.

It was a hell of a lot sharper than it looked. It went through nice and easy and clean—and then, because the leather was just as stubborn, it didn’t wiggle around. Shepard capped it, pinched it, and never mentioned it again.

After that, he took out a week-old _Galaxy of Stars_ magazine he’d taken from Serrice’s once they got the next issue in. On the front, Garrus Vakarian was giving him a two-fingered salute.

Shepard cracked his knuckles and fell asleep with his nose in the binding, the glossy pages of that old rag shielding his eyes from the early morning sunlight.

**END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A sweater-tingling coda to come. <3 Thank you for reading!


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